Red and Green
by Zettel
Summary: Short Story. Two strangers meet in a DC bar on Christmas Eve, each facing an uncertain future. Will a little Christmas magic show them the way?
1. Stirrings

A/N: My other Christmas Cheer offering. _A Year Without Christmas? _is well underway. This is a little candy-cane treat_. _

* * *

**Red and Green**

Chapter One: Stirrings

* * *

Sarah Walker sat down at the bar, _The Night of Joy_.

The bartender approached her quickly and Sarah felt herself sink a bit, facing the prospect of yet another bartender deciding he was what she really needed. That little farce played out again and again, and it always ended with the bartender having to choke down a stiff rebuff.

She was out in DC and out of Langley, out of the CIA. She had been an agent for five long years, the end of her teens and her early twenties. The job had stretched her out, thinned her psychologically. She had known she needed to quit but lacked the fortitude to do it. She had grown used to it and grown distant from normal life, normal people. Her childhood had been irregular, her recruitment into the CIA illegal, and her years in the Company interminable.

Until today. She had walked out earlier this very afternoon. Quit.

She had been called in on Christmas Eve, not a tragedy since the holidays held nothing for her but bad memories. She and her father had been homeless for a time and had spent holidays in soup kitchens or in Salvation Army Centers. Later, when they had 'gotten on their feet' — which for her father meant they found the resources to start running more ambitious cons — they had stolen money from a couple of the very places that had sheltered them from the cold. Sarah still felt her cheeks blaze red with shame when she thought of it.

"Must be cold out, got your color up," the bartender said, leaning on the top of the bar and toward Sarah, his smile too friendly.

Sarah fought back a grimace and gave the man a face of inexpression. "Yes, cold out there, and it is cold in here too." She gave him a direct glance with her blue eyes, emptying them of warmth, an old trick of hers. He leaned back, chilled.

"What can I get you?" His tone now dialed back to _customer _setting.

"Just a beer, lager, on tap. Nothing," she added, then repeated, "_nothing_ else."

Sarah wanted to have her beer in peace and consider what she had done. She felt surprisingly okay with it, although she was unsure why she had entered the bar. Today had been the second time she walked out of work — the first time, she walked away from her father's cons, and the second time, today, she walked away from spying.

Langston Graham, CIA director, found her not long after she had walked away from her father and his cons. She had been driven by need, hunger, into shoplifting at a grocery and been caught. Graham had somehow found out about her, and her conning work with her father, and judged her to have 'real potential' (his words) as a spy.

He offered her a deal — a clean record in exchange for joining the Company. She was too young to think it through, too afraid; she had no one she trusted to advise her. It actually seemed like a good trade at the time. Dishonest living for an honest living. But that had not been the trade. She went from amateur liar to professional liar, from amateur thief to professional thief, from her father's cons to government-sanctioned cons.

Until today.

She tried to reel in her thoughts, get control of them. The Director had told her it was time for her Red Test. She was assigned a double-agent to eliminate. She was to board a plane, fly to Paris, find the woman, and kill her.

Sarah had hesitated.

"Agent Walker," Graham intoned in the silence of his office, "is there a problem?"

"If I do this, will this sort of thing become...my new sort of mission?"

Langston nodded. "Not solely, but, yes, it will become an important part of what you do. This is a promotion, Agent. You and I have worked together often enough in the past, and you know that I have been grooming you...At least, I think you know that?"

Sarah nodded back. Graham continued: "But to promote you, to make you my good right hand, which is my intention, I need to know that you can do what needs doing…"

Sarah nodded again, but she did not speak. She had killed four times on missions, but always in self-defense or defense of another agent. Nonetheless, each of those times had weighed on her, sent her into depression. She recovered and went on, but still…

To pull the trigger in cold blood, to kill on command, — was that something she could do?

And then she told Graham no, and told him she was done. She left Langley, leaving behind her badge and gun.

The truth was that she had said _no _to Graham because her answer to herself had been _yes_. She could kill on command. She was sure of it. She was...wired that way. But that was why she said no. She could do it, but she knew the price it would demand: the complete erosion of herself, and so little of her was left as it was.

There had not been much to start with.

And now she faced starting over with less. But not with nothing. She still existed, still some self remaining, a remnant that had been enough to speak _no _to Langston Graham.

The bartender, now not seeking eye-contact, brought her beer and stayed on his side of the bar.

Sarah glanced around. A couple of couples at different tables. An older man, glasses and beard and book, on the far end of the bar. But it was still early evening. And it was Christmas Eve. Lots of folks at home, probably, with family.

Home. Family. Two words from a foreign language, one of the few Sarah did not speak. Languages. The CIA had done that — schooled her, after a fashion. She was agile where languages were concerned, blessed with a retentive mind. She had to figure out how to take those skills and turn them into civilian employment. She took a small notebook from her large purse and grabbed a pen from the purse's interior pocket.

She started thinking about a resumé: how would hers look, what would she say? The one job she had was a job she could not, exactly, explain, and she was sure that putting Graham down as a reference was a bad idea. His reaction to her _no _had been...unpleasant.

She put the pen on the counter and glanced down at herself. Strange. She had on a red sweater. She had not meant to wear it in honor of the holiday; she had not meant to wear it in honor of her Red Test — God, no, she had not even known that was coming. She had worn it because she liked it, she looked good in it, and December DC was _cold. _

The thought of going back to her lonely apartment left her chilled, despite her warm red sweater. All these years, she had told herself she was alone, not lonely. But it was time to just face the fact: she was lonely. She had been since her teenage days, moving from town to town with her father. He was no company. And later, there had been the Company. Civilian men were impossible — she hated having to lie to or refuse to talk to a man she wanted to care for, wanted to care for her. Other agents were too...professional. They never seemed like they were genuinely dating her, but rather like the dating was just another cover-assignment. She could not blame them, she had felt that way too.

It was Christmas, almost, and Sarah was jobless and loveless and alone. Of course, she had been two of three for a long time. The first was the only news.

Sarah felt a blast of cold air. She turned and looked. A tall, curly-haired man in a green jacket came through the door. He was standing with it open, looking back over his shoulder. He seemed to realize what he was doing and he closed the door, glancing sheepishly around the room, and making momentary eye contact with Sarah. His sheepish grin in response to the contact caused her to smile involuntarily. He turned and looked back through the glass of the door, then came to the bar, three stools from Sarah, taking a spot between her and the older man at the far end.

The curly-haired man had a small booklet, a program, in his hand. He noticed it and shoved it into the pocket of his jacket. Sarah only then noticed that the words _Buy More _were embroidered on the jacket in small yellow letters.

The man glanced at her again but not in a bad way. He seemed slightly embarrassed, not like he was planning a line. He nodded to her and looked away.

The bartender approached. "What'll it be?" The man looked out the window of the bar before answering.

Sarah could see him react in relief. "Um...just a beer. Something hoppy. You choose."

The bartender shrugged and walked away. The man climbed aboard a stool. He blew out a breath.

Words were out of Sarah's mouth before she thought them: "Someone tailing you?" She ended the question with a short, musical giggle. _Sarah!_

The man turned to her, his ears turning red. "Guess I'd make a lousy spy, huh?"

Instead of making her feel defensive, the question sent a thrill of delight through her. "Likely so. Not the right way to check for a tail. Too obvious. You have to use your surroundings to your advantage..."

The man smiled. The bartender brought the man's beer and put it down, noticing the conversation between the two. The bartender frowned and shook his head, walking away.

"Oh…" the man said, grinning, "and I suppose I am talking to a spy?" His grin made Sarah feel warm all over, toothy and friendly and free.

"Actually," Sarah said, "you aren't. But if we'd met three hours ago…"

The man blinked, did an almost cartoonish double-take. He looked around cautiously, checking his surroundings. "Wait, really?" His voice was a whisper. "You are...were...a spy?"

"Yes, five years CIA." Sarah could not believe she said the words. She'd never admitted that to a civilian before, always lying when the subject of her work came up in casual conversation. Of course, she rarely had a casual conversation with a civilian. "Five years CIA," Sarah repeated, "that sounds like the title of a tell-all memoir, huh?"

The man was listening to her with complete attention and Sarah suddenly felt self-conscious. Not because she had told him the truth, but because she could not remember a man looking at her like that before, focused so completely on her, without any hint of awareness of how he stood in relationship to her. He just was not paying attention to himself at all. He had no designs on her or the conversation. She felt another thrill of delight as her self-consciousness passed, and she leaned into his attention.

"It does," the man agreed. He put his hand out. "Um...Hi!...I'm Chuck."

"Hi, Chuck, Sarah."

He shook her hand but made no move to sit beside her. He stood to shake her hand but he climbed back onto his prior stool.

"So, CIA-Sarah," Chuck began, still whispering despite the distance between them, "working on your resumé?" He nodded toward her pen and notebook.

She ducked her head. "Yeah, that's right, I am. Good guess. But I'm sort of clueless about how to put one together. I've had a job for five years, but I've never actually job-hunted before."

"So you just...recently left...the CIA? — God, that sounds weird. Are we really having this conversation? I feel like I'm in the opening scene of a spy movie."

Sarah grinned at him, his playful tone. "No, but you are in the closing scene of one, mine."

"Was it like the movies, really? Spying? I've always wondered. Those Bond films. Fun when I was a boy but, I assume, wildly inaccurate, misogynistic male daydreams?"

Sarah blew out a soft, breathy laugh. "Yes, sorry, the real thing — nothing like that. Lots of long hours, little if any personal life, lots of late nights and sketchy places. Criminals rarely throw cocktail parties or choose to meet at romantic famous landmarks."

"So, if I were in, say, Paris, I'd have been unlikely to run into you beneath the Eiffel Tower, clad in a party gown, gun in hand, chasing some would-be world-despot whose last name is mostly consonants?"

Sarah laughed heartily. "Wow, a daydreaming put-down of daydreaming. Well played, Mister Bond." Sarah ended her comment in a stagy villain-voice.

Chuck laughed in return. "As a baby," he whispered, as if offering Sarah a state secret, "I was shaken, not stirred." He leaned back as she shook her head, laughing more, "The result of the damage sits before you."

Sarah looked at him as he gestured toward himself. She liked what she saw. He was handsome in a non-GQ way. He was tall and lean but wide-shouldered. And his smile, ready and unguarded, was winning. _Winning_. That was a word she never used — not like that, anyway.

She gave him a wide smile of her own, chuckling at him.

He chuckled too. "So, CIA-Sarah, since you have been so...forthcoming, let me tell you that beyond being Chuck, I am also a Stanford grad and the current Interim-Manager of the Burbank Buy More."

"I saw the jacket. Can't say I'm big on the green."

"Can't say I am either, but, you know, you just find yourself in the world, you rarely get to choose your place in it."

"Wow, are you an Interim-Philosopher, too."

He shook his head. "No, but I've been thinking about leaving the Buy More, maybe even leaving Burbank, although, to be honest, this is my first extended trip out of California. I'm here on a business trip. Buy More managerial convention at the hotel across the street."

Sarah thought about Chuck's glances over his shoulder. "Why aren't you having your beer there? No bar?"

"Oh, no, there's a bar. I just...don't want to be in it."

"May I ask why?"

Chuck gave her an embarrassed laugh. "There's this other manager…"

"A woman?" Sarah asked.

Chuck gave her a brow-knitted glance. "Um...yeah, anyway, we keep running into each other at the convention and she…"

"Took a liking to you?"

"Yes. Not, I admit, a common occurrence in my life."

Sarah let that go, though it surprised her. _Why not? You are...lovely, and more than reasonably charming._

"Who is she? Another manager?"

Chuck nodded. "Yes, she runs a Buy More in San Diego, not just Interim, but, you know, the permanent manager."

Sarah was knitting the threads together. "And so you've met her before?"

Chuck nodded, this time glumly. "Several times. Local managerial meetings. She..she…"

"She's interested?"

"I guess. I mean _yes. _She's asked me out a couple of times but I always had a reason to say _no._"

"Oh," Sarah said, a change in her tone, "I thought _you _weren't interested?"

"I'm not," Chuck said quickly, definitely. "Not at all. She's smart and she's pretty. Jill, that's her name, but...not for me."

"What do you mean?"

Chuck took a second. Frowned. "I can't believe I am telling you all this."

"Spy, remember," Sarah said, waving her hand at herself. "We have ways of making you talk. Special interrogation training."

Chuck's smile returned. "You're brutal. Say, I saw a documentary about that once, interrogation. All these techniques. You must really know some, right?"

Sarah shrugged. She knew his 'brutal' had been a joke on the decidedly non-brutal character of her questions, but the truth was that she had been the interrogator a few times when the word would have all-too-accurately applied. She tried to push the memories from her mind, to concentrate on Chuck.

"I do...know some." She wanted to restore her warm mood, so she winked at Chuck. "But I am using the ones from the _gentle _menu."

Chuck drew his hand across his brow as if relieved. "That's good. So, yeah, Jill. She asked me out but I wanted to say _no_ but without hurting her feelings."

"But if she's smart and pretty?"

"She is. But, see, she dated this friend of mine. She doesn't know I know it, but she did. Bryce. He really liked her but she...It turned out she'd been going out on him. Broke his heart. In fact, he left California. Moved to Connecticut, to an accounting firm out there. That's what he is, an accountant."

"So, you're worried that what she did was maybe part of a _pattern_?"

"Yeah, I have zero desire to go through what Bryce went through. And I'm the kind of guy who falls…" He stopped and she could see him mentally berating himself. "Sorry, no need to go into all that."

_You're the kind of guy who falls in love. _Her warm mood was fully restored.

"So, you," Chuck began after clearing his throat, "you left your job?"

"I quit earlier today."

"Had you been planning to do that?"

Sarah started to say _no _but paused. _Had I? Why doesn't all this feel more shocking? More out-of-left-field? Why am I as okay with this as I am? _ "Not...consciously, no. But maybe I knew, deep down, that I was...running on fumes...That I needed a change of life."

"So, you have plans, then?"

"No, no. When I said, 'knew, deep down', I mean really, really deep down. I haven't made any plans. That's why," she pushed her empty notebook toward him, moving herself one stool closer as she did, "there's zilch on the page here.."

Chuck reached out and scooted the notebook to himself, then looked at the blank page. He sipped his beer.

"Well, how about this? Instead of thinking about your resumé, let's think about the kind of job you might want, and then we can more-or-less reverse engineer the resumé." He held out his empty hand. It took her a moment, but she realized what he wanted and gave him her pen. "So, what makes you happy, Sarah? That's the place to start."

_Happy? What makes me happy? Have I ever asked myself that simple question before?_

Sarah took a moment and looked around the bar. She had stopped there on a whim, parking her car at a parking garage a few blocks away and walking in the brisk air, no plan but to put her body into motion in hopes of clearing her head. She saw herself in the glass window of the bar, and then looked past her reflection, into the bar, and saw the large, beautifully decorated Christmas tree. Since coming in, she had not looked again at the tree, but it was why she'd stopped. It had seemed like...a multi-colored lighthouse, a marker onshore. She had been at sea for a long time.

"What makes me happy?"

Chuck nodded, pen in hand, patient. "I hardly know what to say, Chuck. My job didn't...we were taught to avoid..._existential meditation._ It only leads to problems."

They sat in mutual silence, pondering that.

"Well, you aren't in that line of work anymore, ex-CIA Sarah, so take a stab at it. Start small. It doesn't have to be anything big. We can work our way up."

"Okay," she breathed out, feeling very on-the-spot and unsure. Chuck was a stranger and yet she felt at home with him. It was bizarre. Bizarre and, well, wonderful.

"What makes me happy?"

Chuck smirked at her cutely. "That is the question, Miss…?

"Walker, Sarah Walker." She arched an eyebrow, spoke in an English accent.

Chuck shook his head, narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "As if that is your real name…" He laughed.

_Actually, it isn't my real name, but I think I will keep it. _

Her name had been changed often by her father, then often by Langston Graham. 'Sarah Walker' was the name given to her by Graham as part of expunging her record. Graham had not so much expunged her record as recreated her, her old life simply ending, her new life simply beginning. She had never thought about it before, but Sarah Walker had never been anything _but_ a CIA agent.

Until today.

"What makes me happy?" She blushed at herself, again repeating the question. She let her eyes settle on the tree in the corner, the blinking lights and soft-shining red and gold silk ornaments. It still seemed to be beckoning her somehow, as it had when she had been outside. "That tree," Sarah said in a reverential whisper, "that tree makes me happy."

Chuck gazed at her and then at the tree for a long moment. "Ah...Good, that's a good start. Why does it make you happy?"

"I don't know. I normally don't...I haven't got many positive memories of the holidays, to be...honest." _Wow. Honest. _

"Oh! Yeah, I get that. Luckily, my sister — she raised me after our parents died," Chuck's voice cracked, " — she made Christmas special, eventually...But, the first couple of years...I didn't think I'd ever like it again...But it grew on me again...with Ellie's..._she's my sister_...with Ellie's help."

Sarah saw Chuck getting misty.

"Why aren't you there, Chuck? At home?"

"Convention."

"Yes, but why a Convention now?"

"Because Buy More Corporate is as cheap as hell. DC is headquarters. And they could get the hotel rooms and convention rooms for almost nothing, since it is Christmas. But they promised us all some days off between Christmas and New Year, so when I get home, I'll have a few days off and celebrate, belatedly, with my sister. Oh, and my friend Morgan."

Sarah smiled at Chuck. "That sounds nice, even if it's not on schedule."

"Yeah, I guess, but I'd rather be there now."

_Oh, right. _

Chuck reacted. "Sorry, I…"

Sarah understood she had let her disappointment show. "No, Chuck...I…"

"Sarah," Chuck said firmly, "I didn't mean it like that. And...at this moment, I'm happy to be right here on this stool. Well, not _this_ stool, necessarily, I just mean, you know, here, now, talking with you." He looked at the floor, around the bar.

Sarah's spirits climbed again, steeply. "And...being here, now, in this bar, with you, that makes me happy."

Chuck laughed and blushed deeply. "That's good. That's a start."

He turned to her notebook and started to write in it.

Cold air rushed into the bar. Sarah glanced up. A woman in a green Buy More jacket was standing there. Hers had a name sewn on it. _Jill. _

* * *

A/N: Cue tension-creating music. Our villain, such as she is, has arrived. More soon.


	2. Throw Your Arms Around Me

A/N: More of our little holiday treat.

* * *

**Red and Green**

Chapter Two: Throw Your Arms Around Me

* * *

Sarah watched as Jill shook off the cold.

Beneath Jill's green Buy More coat, she had on a very snug Christmas sweater and as she removed her jacket, Sarah was both amused and annoyed to see that the blue sweater featured two snowmen on the front, the heads of each strategically placed on Jill's chest.

Jill was brown-haired and wore glasses. Clad in a very short blue miniskirt and high black suede boots, she was not dressed for a convention — she was dressed to kill.

_Chuck's right. She's pretty._

Sarah glanced at Chuck out of the corner of her eye. He was still writing in her notebook; he had not noticed Jill's arrival. But the bartender had. He was staring at Jill, his mouth open, and he ran his hand through his hair then straightened his shirt collar.

Chuck scribbled away. Jill saw him. She smiled and adjusted her sweater, pulling it down, orienting the snowmen just so, then she ran one hand languorously across the snowmen's faces.

With quick energy, she folded her jacket and draped it across her arm. It was only then that she noticed Sarah watching her. Jill gave Sarah a hard look, then switched her gaze from Sarah back to Chuck, noting the stool between them, one corner of her mouth twitching smileward. She started for the empty stool, her walk already possessive.

Sarah felt reckless. She meant it when she told Chuck that being there with him made her happy. Ceding Chuck's attention to Jill rubbed Sarah the wrong way, especially when she knew Chuck dreaded being found by Jill, had broken from the convention to avoid her clutches.

During her agent years, her cover had required Sarah to kiss and to be kissed by men she despised, all in the mission's name. Kissing Chuck would not be that — kissing a man she despised. Far, far from it. She would be kissing a man she liked. _I like you, Chuck_. And it was for a cover, a tactic to rid Chuck of Jill's unwanted wanton attention.

_Pretense, but for a good cause_.

As Jill closed on the empty stool, Sarah stepped around it and threw her arms around Chuck, one around his neck, the other below his opposite shoulder, and she swept him into a deep, wet, lingering kiss.

That is what Sarah did.

What Sarah intended to do was only to give him a soft peck on the lips and an enthusiastic hug, together enough, Sarah estimated, to soften the noses of Jill's snowmen.

But when her arms encircled Chuck and he turned, surprised, and gave her access to his lips, she lost all sense of pretense, all sense of cover, all sense of tactics and she became all sensation, the nearness of him overwhelmed her: his wonderful, subtle scent, the nectarine softness of his lips, the request-and-permission responsiveness of his tongue to hers. She lit up like the Christmas tree, a blinkard, and she was all silk inside, red and gold soft-shining.

Someone had turned on the jukebox; he or she must have done it just as Jill came in. A song Sarah had never heard was playing, _Christmas Kisses. _It only partially registered on Sarah at first, until Jill aggressively cleared her throat — and Sarah felt Chuck stiffen.

_I want….ooo-ooo-ooo...your Christmas kisses…_

"Chuck? What the hell?"

Sarah stumbled back a step, still lost in the kiss even though it had ended. Chuck was wide-eyed and red-faced. He licked his lips, savoring, before he seemed to become fully aware that Jill was standing beside him.

Sarah sat down on the previously empty stool, right beside Chuck. Jill's teeth gritted.

"Chuck?"

Chuck stood up, looking bewildered, jarred in-body after an out-of-body experience.

Sarah laughed at herself, him, them. _Oh, my God! _The laugh was free of mockery, of herself, Chuck, the two of them. It was free, pure joy.

_I want...ooo-ooo-ooo...your Christmas kisses._

"Chuck?" Jill's voice was now drawing attention to the three of them. Chuck oriented on her.

"Jill?"

Sarah could not will herself to move, to talk, even to think. She was motionless, speechless, thoughtless. She was joy embodied, 5' 9" of joy, blonde-haired joy.

Jill was getting angry and Chuck had only managed to say Jill's name, and Sarah was...delirious.

She had to collect herself.

_What's happening?_

"Chuck, who is this...this _woman_?"

And just like that, Sarah's instincts took over. The pretense, the cover, the tactic…

She stood and extended her hand, exaggerating the gesture. "Hi, I'm Sarah. I'm Chuck's girlfriend."

She heard Chuck gulp.

"You are _what? _Chuck?" Jill stomped one booted foot and left Sarah's hand extended, empty.

Chuck's lips moved but no sound came out. Jill turned and hung her jacket on the back of an empty chair at a bar-side table. Sarah dropped her hand.

"Chuck!" Jill demanded, pushing her glasses up on her nose; they had slid down her nose in outrage. "Tell me what is going on? I thought we would get a drink before tonight's big convention plenary session: _The Unstoppable Salesman Meets the Immovable Object: Offloading the BeastMaster. _I got all dressed up. I thought…"

Chuck shook his head. "Jill, I'm sorry, but I never agreed to that. It was your plan. You just declared we would do it then went up to your room. I never agreed…"

Jill narrowed her eyes, glancing at Sarah for a second. "Chuck Bartowski — you do not have a girlfriend. I know…"

Chuck looked annoyed. "_How_ do you know? Do you think I couldn't _have_ a girlfriend?"

Jill retreated. She shook her head. "No, no, Chuck. I just...Look, Anna Wu, your Nerd Herder, she's been...keeping me up-to-date on your love life...or lack of one."

Sarah slipped her arm around Chuck. "Believe me, Chuck has a love life. An active, _vigorous_ love life. A put-a-girl-in-a-Tilt-a-Whirl love life." Sarah breathed out a long, long satisfied sigh, and leaned her head on Chuck's shoulder. And it was real, she realized, the sigh, the comment, her unfiltered response to that amazing kiss.

Jill's face grew red. "Chuck, make her _stop_. I know she's lying."

The ball was in Chuck's court now, Sarah could only turn toward him and wait. He slipped his arm around her and pulled her close against him, his hand firmly against her side. She felt a shiver go through her and saw Chuck's grin as he felt it.

"She's not lying. We haven't known each other...long...but it's...serious." He turned from Jill to Sarah and she lifted her head from his shoulder. His brown eyes held hers. "It's super serious."

Sarah held onto him tighter; she was dizzy, the room tilting and whirling. Never in her life had she been so...discombobulated. She was reputed to be icy, focused, unswerving, a model CIA agent. Terrorists, professional killers, lunatic fringe leaders — she had stood against and up to all of them, pulse slow and quiet, mind hard-focused, the lens of a rifle scope. Each time, she had walked away more or less unscathed, her mission a success.

And now a meant-to-be-cover kiss of an Interim Buy More Manager had discovered Sarah's heart to her, and her pulse was racing and pounding, her mind soft-focused, the lens of a romantic comedy camera.

"He's right," Sarah added when the silence had stretched out, "it's super serious."

Jill looked from Sarah to Chuck, from Chuck to Sarah. She turned and picked up her jacket. "I don't know what's going on, but...something is. I will go get a drink at the convention hotel, then I am going to the plenary session."

She fished in the pocket of her jacket and produced a hotel key card. She put it in Chuck's pocket. "When your joke is over, find me. Room 667." She gave Sarah a brazen-faced stare and sashayed out of the bar, glancing over her shoulder at Chuck as she went through the door.

The exit performance made Sarah furious. She started after Jill. Chuck caught her hand from behind. "Hey, wait a minute, _girlfriend_."

Sarah turned, startled to hear the word in Chuck's voice. _Girlfriend? Did he think…_

Chuck looked at her, into her eyes. "Thanks, thanks a lot. That was _nice_...I mean _really nice_...I mean _really nice of you_."

"Chuck, I…"

He dropped his eyes for a second, then lifted them. "It's okay. I appreciate the help, I really do. She doesn't seem to know the word _no_. I'm guessing it just makes that Charlie Brown teacher _mwwamp, mwwamp_ sound." He reached in his pocket and pulled out Jill's room key. He waved it. "Can you believe this?"

"Chuck, I…"

He put the key on the bar and left it, then picked up Sarah's notebook.

He put it in his back pocket, and turned to Sarah with a smile. "There's no way I'm going to a plenary session on BeastMasters, no way in hell, but I could be talked into dinner with my…girlfriend."

Sarah stopped saying 'Chuck, I…', and she nodded her head. "Dinner sounds...nice, Chuck. Really nice. Really nice of you to ask."

Chuck gave her a wide grin and she let herself lean back into it. She could explain later. They could talk over dinner.

Sarah put her arm through Chuck's and they left _The Night of Joy. _

ooOoo

They walked up the street for a distance. The wind was cold and Sarah squeezed closer to Chuck. He looked at her but did not hold her eyes. She saw him smile as he looked away.

They were both shivering when they found a Chinese place. By the time they went inside, Sarah felt like she was no longer dizzy, but the joy of the kiss was still with her, making even the chill wind feel good, the city skyline appear beautiful, the stars above them seem numberless.

Chuck slid a chair out for her and she sat down. He sat down across the table from her. A waitress came to the table and handed them each a menu. She left without saying a word. Chuck looked at the menu for a minute then glance up at Sarah.

"I wish I could read Chinese. Those characters, ideograms, some almost seem like pictures..."

Sarah read a bit of the Chinese menu to him in her smooth, practiced pronunciation. The waitress, standing nearby, heard her and came to the table. Sarah asked her about the best dishes on the menu and the young woman gave her two enthusiastic recommendations, complimenting Sarah on her mastery of Mandarin. Sarah ordered the two recommended items and a pot of tea. She turned back to Chuck. He was staring at her, wide-eyed.

"That's amazing, that's so amazing…"

Sarah knew her proficiency but having Chuck praise her brought warmth to her cheeks. He was delighted by her, by her skill and knowledge, not intimidated, not competitive. He asked about several things on the menu and she explained them to him while he listened with a childlike absorption.

When she finished, he shook his head. "Have you ever seen that movie, _The Lion in Winter_?"

Sarah shook her head.

Chuck went on: "It's great. Maybe my favorite Christmas movie, although Ellie thinks I'm crazy. It's about Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine." He paused, looked away. "Eleanor, Ellie...huh, never thought about that before. — So, the dialogue is Shakespearean, brilliant. James Goldman, I think, wrote it. Anyway..." Chuck was almost bouncing in his seat and his eyes were shining with enthusiasm. Sarah felt herself getting swept up into it.

"...There's this great bit where Henry is narrating his life in the third-person. — He and Eleanor are deeply in love and deeply estranged. So, he says of himself: 'He married out of love, a woman out of legend. Not in Alexandria, or Rome, or Camelot has there been such a queen.'"

Chuck slowed, reddened. "You make me think of those lines... 'A woman out of legend.'"

Sarah had no response for a moment. The words reverberated through her. She had been called the Ice Queen in the CIA, a nickname gained as early as her days at the Farm, the training school for agents. But Chuck meant something different by the word. "Chuck, that's sweet, but, really, I just know a few languages and some other…spy stuff. I'm not a queen, not a woman out of legend. I'm a...girl. A real girl. No legend."

_And I am, right now, at this moment with you, a real girl. A real girl with a wonderful boy._

Chuck ducked his head. "I don't know. You seem pretty...pretty legendary to me."

Sarah grinned. The waitress came by with the tea, and Sarah poured a cup for herself and one for Chuck. She picked hers up with both hands, inhaling the aroma and enjoying the warmth of the cup against her hands. She took a sip and settled back in her chair.

"Oh, that's good. Hits the spot."

Chuck imitated her and took a sip. He grinned. "That _is_ good."

They sat for a moment, sipping their tea in silence.

"Chuck, I...I hope that what happened back at the bar didn't...upset you. I saw Jill come in and I thought I could dissuade her by…"

"By kissing me?"

"Yes, by kissing you."

"Well, it worked, I guess, at least as well as anything that amounts to a _no _can work on Jill."

"Right. Well, I just…"

Before she could go on, Chuck reached across the table and took Sarah's hand in his. "You know, normally I'm the guy who talks things to death, analyzes and re-analyzes, but I'm in a new city with a...new girl...and I will not talk things to death. I'm just glad to be here with you. It makes me happy — and I did not expect to be happy this Christmas Eve."

The waitress arrived with two steaming plates of food. They unclasped hands. Chuck paused. The food smelled wonderful. Sarah was not sure what to say, so she started eating after giving Chuck a brief reassuring smile.

Chuck ate a bite then put down his chopsticks. "You know, Anna Wu, Jill's spy, is right. I don't have a…love life. I dated a girl in college. Erin. She was a great girl and I was...well, I really liked her. But she turned out not to feel the same way. She was great about it. Let me down easy, tried to be kind, never lied to me...but I lied to myself, told myself that she was a serious as I was. She ended it at the beginning of senior year. I didn't fall apart or anything, but it left a bruise...made me...cautious. Nerveless.

"The same thing happened to me with work. I applied to a bunch of dream jobs out of Stanford. I expected to be working for, say, Apple or Roark Industries a few weeks after graduation. But the economy was sour and...and it didn't happen right away. So, I caved, got a job I meant to be temporary, the Buy More, and ended up staying, unable to leave, somehow rising to Interim-Manager. For a company I dislike."

Chuck picked up his chopsticks and poked at his food for a minute. "I suppose it's stupid for me to tell you this, seeing as how you are an ultra-successful CIA agent." He snickered at himself and glanced at her.

"Ex-CIA Sarah, here, Chuck. I am unemployed. My skill set is scary, but not in a good way, an employable way. I'm no woman out of legend. I had a job for years that made me unhappy but I couldn't summon the will to quit until today. I'm an unemployed girl whose apartment lease will run out now that she is no longer with the Company. So, as of the end of the month, I will be jobless _and _homeless."

Chuck ate a bite. He put down his chopsticks again and grabbed Sarah's notebook from his back pocket. He turned the cover back and began to read.

_Sarah Walker. Former CIA employee, job details classified. Very smart. Well-traveled. A lover of Christmas trees and banter. The bluest eyes on the planet. _

He stopped and looked at Sarah. She dropped her eyes, embarrassed, touched. "And," Chuck added, "I can now add _Specialist in languages. _We aren't there yet, but we are making headway." He produced her pen from his shirt pocket and wrote in the notebook.

Sarah grinned, shaking her head at him. They finished their meal with Sarah telling Chuck non-mission tidbits about missions in Alexandria and in Rome. When she finished he looked at her dreamily. "Tell me about the Camelot mission…"

She kicked his shin under the table.

"Hey! Ouch."

ooOoo

They left the restaurant and headed back toward Chuck's hotel and Sarah's parking garage, arm in arm, their steps slowing as they neared the hotel. When they got there, Sarah walked into the lobby with Chuck. They both scanned the area for Jill, but did not see her, and sighed in relief at the same time.

Sarah started to say goodbye, but Chuck caught her hands in his. "Sarah...I'd really like to ...wake up with you on Christmas morning."

"What do you mean, Chuck?" Sarah asked although she knew.

"I want you to come upstairs to my room. I want you to spend the night with me." He stopped and Sarah started to reply, but he went on. "I don't do _this_, Sarah. But ever since I met you, I've felt this connection. So strong. I might have thought I was hallucinating if it hadn't been for that kiss. That kiss…that kiss. Girlfriend?" He shook his head.

"Chuck, I...they taught me to do that kind of thing. For missions, as part of a cover, or to ...manipulate a mark."

Chuck's shoulders sank. "Oh."

"I wasn't manipulating a mark, Chuck, you know that. But I was trying to get Jill to leave you alone. Make her think you had a girlfriend."

He looked at her. "As pathetic as this sounds, you made me think I had one."

Sarah was dizzy again. She had started the kiss to make Jill believe Chuck had a girlfriend. Sarah ended the kiss somehow as Chuck's girlfriend. She knew it but she was not sure what to do about it.

Her whole body ached to go up to Chuck's room but the day had been so full, so fast and she was dizzy. The joy she had been feeling was real but…

"I get it," Chuck said, smiling with effort and for her benefit. "It was really nice of you, Sarah. It was great to meet you. A memorable Christmas Eve." He took her notebook out of his pocket and handed it to her. She took it with one hand, her other still in his. "Just keep thinking about what makes you happy."

He leaned in and kissed her cheek. "Goodbye, ex-CIA Sarah."

He dropped her hand and turned and walked to the elevator. The doors open and he got on. The doors closed and he was gone.

Sarah stood there for a minute, blinking back tears. _Crazy. _She rotated in place, started to leave, looked out of the lobby doors. The street was empty. Across the street, through _The Night of Joy _window, she saw the Christmas tree. It was blinking, but all the lights seemed red. Sarah stopped.

Turned around.

She opened the notebook. Below her list of qualifications, now including _Specialist in languages, _was Chuck's name and room number. 564.

Sarah closed the notebook and tapped it in her palm. She smiled then she crossed the lobby and got on the elevator, pressing the button for the fifth floor.

She hugged herself as the doors closed.

_Chuck makes me happy._

She exited the elevator and walked to his door. Her hands shook. The dizziness was fully back, the joy, too. She knocked.

A moment later, Chuck opened the door. His shirt was untucked, his shoes off, his expression annoyed. "Look, Jill, I told you…" He stopped.

His expression became all wonderment. "Sarah..."

No one had ever said her name to her more sweetly.

"Chuck, I want to wake up with you for Christmas."

She tossed her coat and purse into the room, past Chuck and to the side, then launched herself through the door and threw her arms around him again.

They toppled to the floor of his room, both laughing. Sarah turned, still atop Chuck, and pushed the door closed with her foot.

"Sarah," he said again, and she felt herself, herself fully alive. She kissed him as she had in the bar and she lit up again, all her lights green, her whole body atremble.

She sat up and pulled off her red sweater.

Chuck's eyes filled with yearning. "A woman out of legend."

Sarah smirked at him happily as she dropped her sweater, leaning back in for more urgent Christmas kisses: _ooo-ooo-ooo_. "A girl who likes a boy."

* * *

A/N: We aren't done here yet. But I won't post another chapter until I have posted the next chapter of _A Year Without Christmas_?

Thoughts? Reactions?

Do you know the Hunters and Collectors song, _Throw Your Arms Around Me? _A classic. You can hear it — oh, and _Christmas Kisses _and the Charlie Brown teacher voice — on Youtube. Other than the original Hunters and Collectors recording, Neil Finn of Crowded House does a lovely acoustic cover of it that is worth finding.


	3. Breathe

A/N: Great that so many are enjoying this little tale so much. We're in the middle of our story.

Let's start.

* * *

**Red and Green**

Chapter Three: Breathe

* * *

Sarah drifted to shore, awakening. Awakening. Awake.

During her time as an agent, Sarah had awakened in hotel rooms many times, but never as she awakened that Christmas morning. Chuck's strong arms were around her, their feet entangled. Sarah was naked and could feel that Chuck was. She looked around the room as much as she could without moving, disturbing Chuck.

A standard hotel room. A non-standard morning.

"I don't do _this_," Chuck had told her after asking her to his room. Neither did she.

Casual physical encounters were common among agents during missions, when the crawling time or the excessive adrenaline or the systematic deadening of the job became too much.

But they had not been common for Sarah. That was another reason _Ice Queen_ had stuck. Sarah had seen some Bond films, or bits of them, and had known many male agents who viewed the films as exhibitions of career goals. The nickname had been the 'gift' of male agents who believed that their looks or their Sean Connery _machismo_ or their Timothy Dalton _savoir-faire_ made them irresistible.

Sarah had not found those agents irresistible. She had repelled their advances with ice in her blue eyes, and they had not taken that well.

It drove Sarah crazy, to be honest. She had dated a few agents when not on missions, three men serious about the job — but with no delusions of _Bond-uer_. — _Who says I'm not funny_? Sarah's hard-won experience was that the only spy worth trusting at all was the spy who did not fantasize spying. But even with each of those men, the job had bled into the attempt to establishing anything that could carry meaning, anything that could last. The job bled on everything. Red.

The bottom-line at the Farm, the bottom-line of the spy life, was that _sharing was a mistake, often deadly_. That was why _Spies don't fall in love_ was constantly chanted — the mantra to still vulnerable fluctuations of the heart, to close the consciousness of the spy, to entomb him or her in solipsism.

A metaphysical loneliness. A life apart.

Once, years ago, around the time of her graduation from the Farm, her 'seduction' class teacher, the legendary spy Roan Montgomery, had happened into her at a restaurant. He was already waist-deep in martinis and sinking.

Montgomery had cajoled her into sitting with him for a moment, having one drink.

He had quaffed his current martini, ate the olive, motioned to the waiter for another, then leaned toward Sarah, vermouthing the words. "A good spy is an outpost from which no garrison sallies forth and over which no flag ever flies."

He stared at her as if to underline the words, and then he had tapped the table with his index finger as he went on. "Remember that, Sarah Walker," — tap — "and you will be fine. Better than fine." Double tap. " You have all the skills, but I worry about your heart," — multiple taps — "I worry that underneath that wintry exterior, _you have one_. That's a real problem." Multiple hard taps.

His eyes had flashed pain for a moment, but he offered no explanation. He had leaned away from her, taking the odor of vermouth with him, and fallen silent. She left soon afterward, unsure of what he had meant but sure he had been thinking about himself as much as her.

But now: Now, it was Christmas morning — and Sarah had what she wanted for Christmas. She was waking up with Chuck. She was where she was, loose-limbed, comfortable and warm in Chuck's arms, because she had a heart. Roan had been right.

She didn't do _this_. — But she did.

Although, as she let her mind wander to last night, she was not sure she knew what _this _was. What happened between the two of them after she threw her arms around Chuck was something new in her experience. She did not understand how to put the experience into words.

She had shared herself with a man who shared himself with her.

She had no categories to express what happened. It had been the creation of something, not the execution of something.

And it had happened...between them, shared, not two separate responses boxed in separated minds and bodies, but one joint response of conjoined minds and bodies. Theirs, not his and hers — more one than two. No barter, no contract, just the advent of their passion.

Each of Chuck's caresses had touched Sarah's heart. Her heart had expanded, filled her body, rendered all of her exquisitely sensitive. She had yielded herself up to the moment, to Chuck, her normal reserve, her normal reservations, gone. Heart from head to toe, and all points between. Nothing was awkward or embarrassing; no sense of display or exhibition, but only of presence. Joy.

In the past, with men she had dated for a time, she had always felt after sex like she had taken something and like something had been taken from her. She had been willing, but still…

Last night, she had given something and been given something...Or become part of something, no longer apart...

Joy.

She was still struggling to understand, and snuggling deeper into Chuck's arms, when she saw his eyes flutter, focus. Dawn was in his smile. He looked at her face so near to his and he closed his eyes, not in a return to sleep, but in thankfulness for her.

"Merry Christmas, ex-CIA Sarah," he breathed, kissing her lips.

"Merry Christmas, Interim Manager Chuck Bartowski," she initiated a kiss in return.

He put his arms around her more, pulling her to him, their bodies in contact, flesh to flesh. The feeling of the hardness of him against the immediate tautness in her lower stomach caused a sharp intake of her breath.

"Chuck," she whispered in entreaty, "again, please?"

He made her wish come true.

ooOoo

Later, Chuck was in the shower. Sarah, dressed in a pair of Chuck's extra pajamas, was sitting cross-legged on the bed. She was looking at the page in her notebook where she and Chuck had been working out her resumé.

_Specialist in languages_.

Sarah had learned the languages she knew as a matter of operational necessity, as tools for missions.

_A lover of Christmas trees and banter. Banter_.

Chuck was right. She loved language for its own sake, for its beauty and ugliness, its precision and vagueness, its power and weakness. But they had trained her to silence, her father and Graham, aided by her native introversion. But, yesterday, with Chuck, she had not had to dredge up words. She had talked not only in English, but in truths. The words came, playful and serious. Maybe language was her future.

Her future. She had not told Chuck in words yet, but last night she had tried to tell him with the fullness of her actions toward him, the quality of her attention to him, the urgency of her desire for him, — she had tried to tell him she _was_ his girlfriend. Not to fool Jill, but for real. She was.

He wanted that but she still felt nervous about telling him or asking him, or whatever she was supposed to do. She was still there this morning because what had happened last night had not been about one night for either of them.

Still, he lived in Burbank. She lived in DC. She was not even sure when he was supposed to fly home, when the convention was supposed to end. She did not know his middle name, or whether he liked his coffee with cream or without, or whether he liked coffee at all or...

_Don't freak out, Sarah. Just talk to Chuck. Be honest about how you feel. Listen to him when he tells you how he feels. Figure this out, Sarah, you're a smart woman. But you don't have to figure this out alone. Not alone. _

The clock radio beside the bed emitted static, and then the room filled with music. It took Sarah a moment to recognize the song, Wham!, _Last Christmas_.

She sat, transfixed as it played. The song played through; it ended. It started again. Sarah got up and pushed the off button, but to no effect. She pushed all the buttons, turned the knobs — nothing. She pushed the nightstand back from the wall and pulled the radio cord from the wall and Wham! gave up the ghost. She shook her head, staring at the clock radio in her hand.

Last Christmas.

Last Christmas, Sarah had been freezing in an abandoned warehouse in Berlin, waiting to contact an asset, working to stop a shipment of stolen missiles. The asset never showed up; Sarah would find her body, and abandon it, the next morning.

That had been last Christmas.

This Christmas was infinitely better. She just needed to relax. _Breathe in, breath out._

The door to the bathroom opened and Chuck stepped out. He saw Sarah with the clock radio in her hands. He raised an eyebrow.

She held it out, the cord dangling. "It started playing a Wham! song. And it wouldn't stop."

"That is a serious offense, although I am not sure the death penalty is proportional to the crime."

Sarah chuckled. "Well, I tried to reason with it, but it wouldn't listen…"

"Clearly, it forfeited its right to life," Chuck conceded.

He grabbed a pair of socks from a drawer and his shoes from the floor, sat down on the bed but made no move to put them on. "So, technically, there are convention meetings today, but I would rather spend the day with my...with you, if you're...up for that?"

Sarah smiled and nodded.

Chuck went on. "It's Christmas and it's cold, but I thought we might see some DC sights. I've only seen things on TV or in pictures. We could go by your place, and you could change clothes and then we could head out?"

_My place? Do I want Chuck to see my place_?

It made her nervous. She took no one to her place. The few men she had dated for any length of time had places of their own and Sarah went to their places.

Her place was not a mess. It was just not..._a place_, anyone's place. It was more sterile, more impersonal than Chuck's hotel room. A lot more.

Chuck's room was not messy but it seemed his. The graphic novels on the nightstand, the open laptop on the desk, the clothes out of his suitcase and folded in the drawers (she saw him take them out before his shower): he had made the room home, homey.

At her apartment, there was little that felt like hers, and nothing that felt homey. She returned to it to sleep and to shower. Sometimes to eat. She was often gone for weeks, even months at a time.

Even when she was in DC for periods longer than a few days, rare, she continued to live out of her suitcase. In fact, her suitcase was on her bed, open, in her apartment, where Sarah had left it after removing the red sweater and dark jeans she had on yesterday.

But Chuck's eager eyes and smile won her over. "Ok, Chuck. Let's get my car and I'll go change." She could not prevent a smile. She walked to him and kissed him. The kiss began to grow deep and long, and Sarah made herself step back.

Chuck grinned in mischief and she waggled her index finger at him. "Any more of that, and we will spend the day long in this bed, Chuck." He nodded.

Sarah retrieved her clothes and underwear, and the sheath of knives Chuck had taken off her leg as he finished undressing her the night before. As he had taken the sheath off, he had looked into her eyes. She had forgotten it was there, and she had panicked when Chuck found it. But he just nodded at her, holding her gaze as he removed it, and repeated the line: "A woman out of legend."

That time, she had not replied. By then, Sarah was naked except for her panties. Instead of replying, she helped him slide her panties down and she showed him the girl who liked the boy.

She shook her head to clear it of the memory. The bed seemed to grow in the room, calling her back to it. But she knew they both needed time away from it, time to be together without being together. She had every intention of sharing a bed with Chuck again that night.

In the bathroom, she turned on the faucet so she could wash her face. Chuck knocked on the door and she turned off the water, opened the door. He handed her a small tube of toothpaste and an unopened toothbrush. She took them, then looked up from them at Chuck. "Were you expecting...an overnight guest, Chuck?"

He blushed a deep red. "No, no. Not at all. I just pack an extra of everything. I'm always worried that I won't have what I need."

Sarah grinned. "Just giving you a hard time. Thanks, this is great." She washed up and brushed her teeth, put her knives and clothes back on, then left the bathroom and put on her coat, grabbed her purse.

Chuck was sitting on the end of the bed waiting, coat on. He watched her with an open fondness that stole her breath, and made her heart bounce.

"I didn't tell you yesterday, Sarah, but that sweater. I liked red before; I...love it now."

Sarah smiled and walked to him. He stood and kissed her. He slid his cheek against hers, his lips to her ear, whispered. "Are you wearing those knives"

"Tied tight around my calf," she whispered, "if you're a good boy today, I'll let you take them off me again for Christmas." She felt him shiver against her.

Stepping away from him, she took his hand. "Let's go. They will charge me a fortune for parking my car overnight."

"Oh, right," Chuck said, "I didn't think."

She rubbed her thumb across his knuckles. "Don't take this the wrong way, but...so worth every penny."

He shined at her and they left his room.

They exited the elevator in the lobby and started to head out of the hotel when Chuck stopped, patted his pockets. "Oh, damn." He shook his head.

"What, Chuck?"

"I forgot my phone. I started thinking about…" — he leaned toward her — "your knives and…"

She shook her head. "Well, run back up and get it. I'll wait."

He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. "Be right back." He gave her a quick kiss and jumped back onto the elevator.

Sarah watched the doors close then turned around.

Jill was standing in front of her. "Who the hell _are_ you?" Jill shoved a piece of paper at Sarah. It was a printout of a CIA employment roster. Sarah's name was on it.

"_Who_ the hell are you, and _what_ are you doing with Chuck?"

"_How_ did you find that?"

Jill, now dressed in more ordinary convention attire, and in her green Buy More jacket, smirked at Sarah. "I was able to get the bartender at the bar across the street to let me see your credit card receipt. He overheard you say something about the CIA to Chuck. I don't manage a Buy More for nothing. I _hunted_ you online until I found you. But this is all there is. Nothing else. Nothing. You don't exist."

"And just _how_ did you get the bartender to show you my receipt?"

Jill blinked, blanched. The two women stared at each other.

After a moment, Jill gathered herself, continued, "You are just a blip on the radar, Sarah Walker. Chuck will go home and he will forget all about you. But I will be there. I just got word yesterday that my request to take over the managerial opening at the Beverly Hills Buy More has been approved. I'll just be a few minutes away from him." Jill drew herself up to her full height, still several inches shorter than Sarah. "And just so you know, he prefers _brunettes_."

Sarah mirrored Jill's smirk. "Huh. That's news to me."

Jill cringed and tried to disguise it. "Just remember, Blondie, one fine day does not a summer make."

Sarah could not help herself. She knew the quotation, the whole quotation; Jill wasn't the only one who had read a book. She gave Jill a saucy smile. "No, nor one swallow…"

The paper Jill had in her hand she crumpled in her fist as her face grew red. Despite bright-shining red, she was green with jealousy. _Bullseye._

"You...You...Just know, _this isn't over_." She turned and stomped away. Sarah knew she should not have taken that cheap shot, but Jill had made her angry last night and again this morning.

And Jill had touched a nerve.

Was Sarah going to be just a blip on the radar? Chuck might not intend for this just to be a fling, but could it be anything more? Once Chuck was back in California, Jill would have a home-court advantage.

— Sarah was not so much worried about Jill as she was what Jill represented: the women who would be near Chuck, so much nearer than Sarah would be.

She was pondering that when Chuck got off the elevator. "What's up? You look annoyed. Sorry about forgetting my phone."

"No, no, Chuck. Not annoyed with you. I just ran into Jill. She told me she's been named Manager of the Beverly Hills Buy More."

Chuck grinned. "Fitting."

Sarah shook her head. "Why?"

"I call it _Beverly Hells_. The Burbank Buy More has been in a running feud with that bunch of privileged schmucks forever. My buddy Morgan hates them with a special hatred. Their old manager, Skippy, no joke, got the axe just after Black Friday, pocketing store money. Just the right place for Jill. Jill. Ha! The Beverly _Jills_…"

Sarah grinned. "She seems to think she'll have...easy access...to you now. That woman is a predator."

Chuck nodded but his grin vanished, replaced by a stern expression. "Sarah, I...I hope you know...I mean it was implied, I thought…" He shuffled his feet, glanced around. "Last night, and again this morning...You are my girlfriend...that is, if you want to be. Last night, and again this morning...I took it that you.._.do_?"

Sarah's heart bounced again. "_I do_, Chuck. We have a lot to figure out, but let's go enjoy this bright, cold Christmas day, and get started."

Chuck reached into his pocket. He had her notebook. "That sounds great. And we can keep working on your resumé."

Sarah kissed him and they started the walk to the parking garage. She thought about what she and Chuck had said to Jill at the bar. _Super serious_. It was already, or Sarah wanted it to be.

With Chuck, she was okay with super serious.

ooOoo

Sarah parked her Porsche in her spot in her apartment's parking deck. Chuck was still wide-eyed about the car, and he had watched her drive it with a look of charmed disbelief. But he had made no comment.

They got out and took the elevator up to her apartment.

At the door, Sarah stopped, her keys in her hand. "Chuck, I should tell you. I've lived here, in some sense of that term, for about five years, but I'm never really here."

He nodded quietly. She put the key in the door and opened it. For the first time, she showed a man into her apartment.

Chuck walked in and Sarah followed. She clicked on the light. But Chuck was looking at her, not the apartment.

"Sarah, just in the interest of...full disclosure, I don't even have a place of my own in Burbank. I still live with Ellie. I mean, basically, I still live at home. Over the last year, I've saved a lot; I can afford my own place now. But I still haven't moved…I'm..._Interim_ all the way down." His embarrassment showed on his face.

Sarah walked to him and took his hands. With her head and eyes, she gestured over his shoulder, around her apartment. "You've not left home and I've not had one. I guess, weirdly, that makes us even." She rose on her toes to kiss him, then turned him, to give him the tour of the apartment.

It took all of three minutes. The bare living room with its utilitarian furniture. The small table with one chair. The empty kitchen cabinets and empty fridge. The barracks-like bedroom that looked, Sarah realized, alarmingly like her room at the Farm.

The suitcase open on the bed.

Chuck gazed at the suitcase. "Were you, are you planning to go somewhere?"

The question took Sarah by surprise. The fact of the suitcase had embarrassed her, that she was living out of it, instead of out of her empty drawers and empty closet. But Chuck did not know that. His assumption was natural.

"Well, it's...complicated. I was expecting to leave town but I was...already packed. Or, I was not unpacked. I mean…"

Chuck's brow furrowed. "Expecting to leave town. For...spy stuff?"

"Yes. I got a call from my boss and I assumed after our meeting I would head off on a new mission."

"Was that what he wanted? To send you on a new mission?"

"Yes." Sarah began to feel nervous.

"But you quit? Was it because of the new mission?"

Sarah took a shallow breath. "It was."

"Can you tell me why the mission made you quit. Given what you said yesterday, you didn't go consciously planning on quitting…"

"No, I didn't…" She felt short of breath suddenly.

"And?"

"And he asked me to take a mission, to do something I was not...willing...to do."

Chuck's eyes grew larger. She knew the question in his mind.

_What will he think of me if I tell him, when he knows that my boss thought I would agree, expected me to agree? And If I don't tell him, what will he imagine? After what I said about kissing him, my training…_

Sarah's phone rang. She used the ringing to duck out of the bedroom. She took the phone from her purse. The ringing had stopped. She looked at the record of the call, recognized the number. Langston Graham's private number.

Chuck followed her into the living room and his face grew concerned. "Is everything okay?"

Sarah nodded. Her phone beeped. A message. She pushed the button.

_Agent Walker, Graham here. I've given you twenty-four hours to reconsider...cool off. I need you to come to Langley and discuss it with me. We can work this out. I do not want the Company to lose you. I do not want to lose you. This isn't just your job, Agent, it's your life. I expect to see you soon._

Sarah took the phone from her ear. Chuck was watching her, her face.

_Tell him the truth, Sarah. Full disclosure. Super serious. Talk in truth, not just in English_. _Breathe._

"That was my boss, ex-boss, Langston Graham. He wants me to come to see him...basically, he wants me to come to Langley now. I quit because he wanted to..._promote me_, I guess that's the phrase…at least as he understands it."

Chuck smiled uncertainly. "But that's great."

"No, Chuck. He wanted to promote me to an assassin. He wanted me to execute a double-agent."

The color drained from Chuck's face. It looked like he stopped breathing.

* * *

A/N: Thoughts?

I got this done before finishing the next chapter of _A Year?_ I am almost done with that chapter, so if you are reading that story, expect it soon.


	4. Whistles

A/N: Two chapters to go after this one.

* * *

**Red and Green**

Chapter Four: Whistles

* * *

Sarah's chest felt as empty as her chest of drawers.

Chuck retreated into Sarah's bedroom and sat down, plopped down, on the end of her bed. Her suitcase, balanced on the bed's side, slammed shut. It was far enough over the side that the momentum of the shutting lid caused it to spill over, onto the floor.

Sarah's things tumbled out, the suitcases contents, lacy underwear, blouses and slacks, her stack of passports, a bunch of credit cards, grivory knives in a sheath, a pistol and extra ammo. Sarah's last trip had been aboard a CIA plane, and so she had no need to worry about airport security; now she devoutly wished she had. Chuck heard the suitcase fall and jumped up, turning. He stared down at the chaos of items.

"Chuck?..."

He turned back around and sat down — gingerly this time. He looked at her. Sarah started toward the spilled suitcase but Chuck caught her hand as she went past. "Sarah?..."

She stopped and faced him. "So, your boss, this Graham wanted to make you an assassin?"

Sarah dropped her head, then nodded it, not looking at him. "And you told him _no_?"

"Yes."

"I'm guessing he hears _no _about as well as Jill."

Sarah raised her head. Chuck's color was returning. Sarah smiled weakly. "_Mwwamp, mwwamp_…"

Chuck laughed, mouth shut, blowing out staccato breaths through his nose. "So, he called because he isn't taking _no_ for an answer?"

"Yes."

"But you haven't...changed your mind?"

"No, Chuck. I'm out."

"So, why go? 'Cause it sounded...a little like you were going to go."

Sarah caught up with herself. _Am I going to go? _"I don't know; I'm not sure I will, but…"

"But, what?"

"But, it's the only life I've ever known. And I didn't think it over, I just did it. That seems to have been more or less the shape of my Christmas Eve…"

Chuck's eyes lost their luster, turned matte. "Are you sorry...about last night? About coming to my room?"

"No, Chuck. I wouldn't change last night, this morning, for anything, not for anything…"

"But?..."

"But...I feel like I owe him an explanation. I just said _no _and he exploded...and I put down my badge and firearm and I walked."

"No closure?"

Sarah shrugged. "Don't know. Maybe?..."

"So, if you go, it would just be to get...closure...not to _reenlist_, if that's the right word?"

"I have no intention to reenlist."

"Is that an answer to my question?"

Sarah squared her shoulders. "When do you fly home, Chuck?"

"I'm scheduled to fly out tomorrow afternoon?"

"Is that an answer to _my_ question?"

Chuck started to respond then stopped. Sarah could see him replaying the conversation in his head. "No," he said after a minute, "it's not. That was a dodge. I am scheduled to fly home tomorrow, but I'm...I'm hoping...not to…"

"We should talk about that, Chuck…"

He nodded.

"But first, I need to go to talk to Graham."

Chuck gave her a hard-to-read look. He stood up and slipped between Sarah and the bed. He knelt down and started gathering her things. He picked up the knives and reached out to pick up some of the underwear. His hand stopped. He looked at Sarah, who was kneeling beside him, picking up the gun and the ammo.

"Last night, about the kiss at the bar, you said _they _trained you...The CIA?"

"Yes." Sarah picked up the underwear.

"And what did they train you to do, exactly? On missions, undercover, did you have to..."

"No, Chuck. Absolutely not. But I did have to learn how to make men believe that I would…And I did learn how...I was good at it..."

"Did you like it, doing that, being good at that?"

"No, Chuck, I...disliked it a lot...You don't think that last night, this morning...that any of it was...professional?"

He shook his head vigorously but did not make eye contact with her. "And you still feel like you owe Graham an explanation?"

"Yes." _I don't know, Chuck. I'm mixed up. I leave the CIA and then you arrive and my life feels so...different...in just one day. _

They finished putting her things back in her suitcase. Sarah breathed in and blew out a breath. "Would you be okay to stay here while I go? We aren't far from there and I can make good time. Hardly anyone is out on Christmas."

Chuck put her shut suitcase down on the bed, scooting it carefully back from the edge. "Um...Sure. I noticed your neighbor has several newspapers outside the door. Is he or she away?"

Sarah shrugged. "She. I don't know, probably. I don't really know my neighbors."

"Well, I'll borrow one. I'll check the job listings for you."

"Okay." Sarah went back into the living room and put on her coat, got her purse. Chuck stepped out the door and then back in with a newspaper.

He stood by the door as she started to leave. "Are you sure you have to go talk to him? I just...I have a bad feeling. I mean it's your life, obviously, it's your life, and we've just...well, not _met _but…"

Sarah stood on her toes and kissed him. "It'll be okay, Chuck. We've more than _met_...we've started. Girlfriend, right?"

Most of the luster came back to his eyes, but Sarah could still see him withholding a part of himself, cautious now, where he had not been before.

"Be back in an hour or so. Make yourself at...ah, let me know if you find anything in the paper. We'll still have the entire afternoon to see some sights."

Sarah went down to her car. She put the key in the ignition but then dropped her hand from it. She shook her head and grabbed the key, turned it. The Porsche throbbed to life. She started toward Langley.

She took her regular route, the one she had taken the day before. But she had not gone far before she ran into a road repair crew. _On Christmas? _Her lane was blocked by wooden barricades, topped by flashing red lights. A large, dumpy man in a red coat under a blaze-orange vest held a pole with a stop sign on the top of it. He was standing in between the two lanes. The stop sign faced her.

Sarah stopped. The man glanced at her through thick spectacles and nodded. She nodded back, waiting, but anxious. Her conviction that meeting with Graham was what she needed to do was waning. And she was achingly aware that the passenger seat was empty, Chuck's seat. Her mind drifted back to the morning, in Chuck's bed, to the rapture of being in his arms.

She drummed her thumbs on the steering wheel. The dumpy man was staring in the other direction. Sarah expected cars to come from that direction, but so far none had. She was just sitting, stopped. She made herself take a deep, deliberate breath.

_What am I doing? What do I owe Graham? If I ever owed him anything, I have repaid it again and again. Why am I heading toward Graham and away from Chuck? _

The dumpy man was looking at her again through his spectacles. His white exhalations were the same color as his beard. He nodded again but did not turn his sign, allow Sarah to proceed.

The radio in the Porsche emitted a storm of static. Sarah reached for the knob to turn it off — _How did it get turned on? _— when the static became Wham! _Last Christmas. _Sarah sat, her hand extended toward the knob but not touching it, frozen.

_Last Christmas. Berlin. The corpse of an asset. Freezing. Alone. _

She grabbed the radio knob and turned it but the Wham! kept playing. She turned the knob one way, then the other, but the song continued, no change in volume.

"Lady!" There was a loud bang. Sarah jumped.

The dumpy man had rapped on the hood of her car. "Lady, you can go, if you want."

The man had turned the sign. The side facing Sarah now just read _Slow _in black letters on an orange background. She pulled into the other lane. As she passed the man, they exchanged looks, and she had a stirring of déjà vu, but she could not recall ever seeing the man before.

She passed by the repair site, glancing to the side, but she saw no other workmen. There was no one with a sign on the other end of the site. Sarah accelerated the Porsche. Wham! kept playing.

The song had played through three times before Sarah reached Langley. It stopped playing suddenly as she entered the Langley purgatorial security gates. The parking lot was almost deserted, just a few cars here and there under the weak December sun. Sarah reached up to shut the engine off, but then she slumped back in her seat.

_What am I doing here?_

_I'm afraid. _

_I don't want this life but I've never known another. I was a teenager when I first walked these halls. I came of age here, such as that coming-of-age was. _

_Berlin. Death on Christmas. _

_A woman out of legend. I want out of the legend, out of Langley, out of this life. I can't let fear and...inertia...trap me here. I've found what I want, even if I didn't know I wanted it. I've found it and if I can just be brave enough, I can have it. Him._

_Chuck. _

She put the car back into gear and left Langley for the last time. She sped on her reverse course. The repair site was still empty. The dumpy man was gone. But the lights on the barricades in the opposite lane were now all flashing green. Sarah increased her speed. She wanted to be back at her apartment, back with Chuck, back in his arms.

She parked the car in her spot in the apartment's parking deck, and she jumped out, almost running to the elevator. The doors opened before she punched the button. She got off, squeezing through the doors as soon as she would fit, and then she did run to her door. Her hand trembling, she keyed it open.

"Chuck, I…"

The room was empty. She went to the bedroom. It was empty too. She checked the bathroom. Chuck was gone. The only sign of him was the newspaper folded neatly on her small table.

She thought about their conversation, her spilled suitcase, the lacy underwear, the knives, the gun. Her 'seduction' training, her possible 'promotion'. It had all been dumped on Chuck so fast. And then she left him with it, her suitcase...and other baggage.

It had been too much. She had asked too much. She had ruined the best thing that ever happened to her.

She was alone and loveless and jobless — again. Yesterday, again today.

But now she could add: _Chuck-less_.

ooOoo

Among the few things Sarah had in the apartment were tea bags and a kettle.

Mechanically, numbly, she put the kettle on and put a bag in her cup. She felt cold all over. The joy of last night and this morning had deserted her; it left with Chuck.

The kettle began to whistle but it did not sound merry; it sounded mournful, dolorous. She poured hot water into her cup.

A story — she thought it was a Dickens' story — about a quarrel between a kettle and a cricket slipped into Sarah's thoughts. She could not remember it clearly: her mother must have read it to her some Christmas when Sarah was very young, before her mother died and her father backslid into his prior career as a conman. The whistle of the kettle brought back the first line of the story in her mother's, Emma's, voice: "The kettle began it!" The memory then slipped away as Sarah took the kettle off the stove and the whistle of the kettle faded.

_Dickens' kettle began it. Mine ended it._

There was a knock on the door.

Sarah turned off the heat and put the kettle back on the stove and walked slowly toward the door.

Maybe her neighbor wondered where her newspaper had gone. Maybe Graham had come to her. — _No, he wouldn't. Would he?_

Sarah opened the door to find Chuck standing there, grinning at her. He had a white plastic trash bag in one hand, stretched full, and in the other, he was trying to balance a medium-sized artificial Christmas tree. It was already decorated with red ornaments and a gold star on its top. When he saw her, he frowned slightly. "Sarah! You're back."

"Yes," she said, stretching the word out so as to give herself time to process, "I decided I don't owe Graham or the Company anything, so I came home...to you. Or I thought…"

The disappointment of not finding Chuck in her apartment welled up in her, a spring of tears. She could not hold them back. The multiple upheavals of the past twenty-four hours overcame her and she began to sob. Chuck put the tree down — it looked bizarre with him towering above it — and he took her in his arms.

"Sarah, Sarah. No, no. I didn't leave. I finished with the paper and decided to decorate your place. A surprise."

"B-b-b-but I _hate _surprises, Chuck," she managed to get out between sobs. Chuck used his free hand to rub her back, comforting her.

"I can see how a spy might not be big on surprises. Should've thought of that. And I should've left a note. But I thought it would take you more time to get back and me less time to run my errand. Nothing was open but a Go-Mart. I bought this tree from the manager, and he threw in some lights and some other odds and ends."

Sarah stepped back and wiped her eyes. Chuck leaned in and kissed her tear-wet lips. "I'm sorry."

Gaining some control over herself, Sarah stepped aside. "Well, come in, Santa. It's cold out here."

Chuck picked up the tree and came inside. He was whistling a tune, a happy contrast to her kettle's mournful whistle. He turned to her, grinning like crazy, a big kid. He carried the holiday in his eyes. "Where should we put it?"

And just like that, her joy was back, filling her like warm wax in a mold.

It was absurdly too early to say it; it was absurdly too early even to think it, but she felt it: _she loved him_. She put the word away but let the feeling overtake her.

She looked around the room. "Let's put it on the table." Chuck nodded and carried the tree to the table. He adjusted it on its base. It had seen better Christmas days. There was no telling how many times the Go-Mart had used it. The ornaments were dusty and the branches bent and off-kilter. Chuck put the bag down and dug out a string of lights. He unwound them and handed the plug to Sarah. She plugged them in. Chuck walked around the tree, stringing the lights. He finished and nodded to her. She clicked the switch and the tree was covered in pinpoints of white. Chuck reached up and pushed a button on the base of the star. It glowed.

Sarah stood back, gazing at the tree. Chuck came to join her. He took her hand.

"It's beautiful, Chuck. I haven't had a tree...in a long time...since I was a little girl."

Chuck let go of her hand and slipped his arm around her waist, holding her against his side. After a moment, Sarah laid her head on his shoulder.

Chuck looked at her, apology back in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Sarah. I didn't mean to make you think that I had...run away."

She snuggled more closely to his side. "I didn't mean to make you think I might...go back."

He nodded, kissed her. He caught her eyes with his. "Our first Christmas."

She nodded, her tears returning but happily. Chuck let go of her and went back to the bag. "C'mon, I've got a few more things we can put up, then I'd like to get some lunch and go see President Lincoln."

"Huh?"

"The memorial."

"Oh."

"Have you ever been?"

Sarah nodded tentatively. "I've been _by_ it a lot, never actually was there to _see_ it. — Are you sure? It's cold."

Chuck nodded eagerly. "And it's supposed to snow. Saw it in the paper. But we'll be together. We'll keep each other warm."

_Yes, my sweet Chuck, yes we will. _"Would you like some hot tea to drink while we finish the decorations?"

"That'd be great!"

The kettle hadn't ended anything.

Sarah made the tea and handed his cup to Chuck. They each took a sip then Chuck started a song playing on his phone, not Wham! but The Three Wise Men, _Thanks for Christmas_. They put up the other ramshackle decorations Chuck had bought from the Go-Mart manager.

The Three Wise Men sang.

_It's such a shame it's only one day every year_  
_Three hundred and sixty-four days full of doubts and fear_  
_You've been saving your love up, let it out, ''cause Christmas is here_  
_Thanks for Christmas_  
_Thank you for the love and happiness that's snowing down, all around_  
_Thanks for Christmas_

Sarah and Chuck snuggled on the couch when they were done, teacups in hand, savoring the still-warm tea and their handiwork. Sarah gazed around her apartment, amazed, awestruck. It glowed — red and green and gold and white.

She had never been at home there before.

_Merry Christmas, Sarah._

* * *

A/N: Tune in next time for the rest of Chuck and Sarah's Christmas day. Sight-seeing, phone calls, and chance encounters. Chapter Five: "Stay or Go?"

You can find the Wham! and the Three Wise Men songs on YouTube. Thoughts?


	5. Stay or Go?

A/N: I hope you are enjoying this story and the other Christmas stories on the site.

* * *

**Red and Green**

Chapter Five: Stay or Go?

* * *

Bundled up, hand in hand, Sarah and Chuck walked toward the Lincoln Memorial.

They were full of burgers and fries, their Christmas dinner, eaten at an out-of-the-way diner open despite the holiday.

ooOoo

The diner had been run by a Greek family and it had been decorated with a litter of Orthodox Nativity items, icons, candles, multi-colored eggs, all-red eggs. Color was everywhere in wild profusion, and a sweet scent of incense hovered, almost undetectable, behind the strong scent of burgers and other diner fare.

The owner was arguing with his wife about an item she was going to take to the church later in the evening, a cake. She was wondering whether to put plastic wrap on the cake pan or whether to leave it off. Her worry was not about freshness. It was rather about whether the plastic wrap might interfere with the blessing when their priest prayed over the food.

"_Yaya_," her husband and the cook protested, exasperated, "if God's blessing passes through the _roof_ of the Church, how could _thin plastic_ prevent it from reaching the cake?"

His wife shrugged stubbornly, not convinced.

The man shook his head and threw his hands up, then gazed up to the heavens — or the ceiling. His wife came by the table and took Sarah and Chuck's plates.

"That was a great burger," Chuck said to her, smiling, "what's the secret?"

The woman gave Chuck a slow smile. "Love."

"Really?" Chuck asked with an easy laugh. "How do you measure that, and how much do you add per pound?"

The woman turned to look at Sarah and then looked back to Chuck. "No, young man, I didn't add it. _You two did_. A rare pleasure to serve a couple so much in love, especially on Christmas."

Chuck glanced at Sarah, clearly made nervous by the woman's comments, worried about Sarah's reaction. Sarah reached out and took Chuck's hand. "It's been a rare holiday, a special one. Thank you, that _was_ a great burger, and those _pickles_…" Sarah had eaten one after another.

The woman nodded, pleased. "My _Yaya's_ recipe. A secret. I can't share it, but I'm so happy you like them. I...felt like we should be open today, but my husband thought I was crazy. He often thinks I'm crazy," the woman added, _sotto voce_, "but I had the strongest feeling…"

Something made Sarah's spy sense tingle ever so slightly. Not a feeling of danger, a threat, but of...something. She shook her head. Probably too many pickles.

Sarah paid the bill over Chuck's mild protest. She reminded him that he had bought the decorations, and they headed to the Memorial.

ooOoo

Sarah felt joyful again, giddy. She playfully swung her hand in Chuck's and he gave her a crooked smile. "What are you thinking?"

Sarah laughed. "Nothing, really...just feeling. And freezing." She pulled Chuck closer and he put his arm around her. "So, Chuck, why the Lincoln Memorial?"

His smile tightened. "When I was in junior high, I did this presentation on Lincoln. Well, it was really on Sandburg's biography of Lincoln. The _War Years. _Not a great biography, in terms of...you know, historiographical standards, — of course, I didn't know that then — , but it's...beautiful in its wandering way, with amazing descriptions of the brutal drudgery of Lincoln's presidential days."

Chuck sighed. "I found it amazing that he could have faced that, and all his personal tragedy, and the weight and horror of the war, and still kept a sense of humor, and managed to be so thoughtful...and decent. I used photographs of the Memorial as part of my report, and I promised myself I would see it if I ever came to DC."

Sarah could see the junior high boy in the man and he delighted her. She was so used to jaded agents, men and women who counted themselves realists, worldly, but who were really just cynical calculators of their own advantage, their own hardened pleasures.

Chuck danced on his feet, excited. "Nineteen feet of Lincoln. I can't wait. — So have you ever gone inside?"

The truth was that Sarah had. She had met a mark there one August night a couple of years ago. She had not looked around at the Memorial. The mark had picked her up. She gritted her teeth and kissed him, let him put his arms around her, slide his hand down onto her backside, squeezing it. She had pulled away from him, laughing, coquettish, hiding her disgust. Later that evening, supremely sure that he would bed her soon, he let slip the information she needed and she had slipped away from him, the feeling of his cold, reptilian hands still on her body, the feeling of his dry, reptilian lips on her lips.

She pushed the thought from her mind but realized that Chuck was studying her, had seen the blush she now felt on her face. She had moved away from him a few steps. "So, you have? Or you haven't? Gone inside?"

Sarah knew the discussion they had earlier as they knelt by her spilled suitcase was not finished. Taking a deep breath of cold air, she launched and told him about the one time she had been inside.

Chuck listened silently, his eyes soft, focused on hers. As she finished, he reached out and took her hand. "I'm sorry, Sarah. But don't think about it anymore, worry about it. It's done. You're done. You aren't at Langley. You didn't go inside… A new life, a new day. Graham and his orders, the missions, done…"

"I know, Chuck, I do. But...I keep hearing that Wham! song…"

Chuck looked lost. "Like, playing in your head, the one on the hotel clock radio?"

Sarah shook her head. "No, it kept playing in my car, on my way to Langley. It came on while I was stopped for road repairs…"

"On Christmas? Really? — Wham!? What DJ in his or her right mind would just play that song on repeat? Dead air would be better. Who would do it?"

"I don't know…But it keeps making me think about my past. Last Christmas, other times, like when I was at the Memorial before. I'm not a woman out of legend, Chuck. I'm not. I'm just a girl, a woman, who has lived in legends, in covers, her whole life, compromised herself almost out of existence. I don't know what you see in me...why you are here...after getting a look at my...baggage."

"Sarah, I'm here. I'm right here. For you. I know this is happening fast, that it's kind of crazy, but I'm not lost, I'm not mixed up. My eyes are open. And I see you — not the CIA agent, just...you. And I meant what I said last night. You're what...I mean _who_...I want for Christmas. So, let last Christmas go. Past Christmases. Let go of Wham! — Well, except for that part of the song." He quoted lyrics:

_This year, to save me from tears  
I'll give [my heart] to someone special._"

Chuck looked down, bashful, but then back up, convicted. "Because it's _this year_..._This Christmas_, you don't have to look back to last Christmas, Christmas with the Company, and you don't have to wait until next Christmas, and I want to be _your _someone special, and..."

Sarah took quick steps toward Chuck, her front pressing into his, her eyes close to his.

"Chuck, you're a gift, _my gift_. I found you under that tree in _The Night of Joy. _I didn't know I wanted you or needed you, but you _are_ my someone special, this year, now."

She kissed him as snow started to swirl around them.

When the kiss ended, he gave her an excited grin, snowflakes in his long eyelashes, and he pulled her after him gently. _He's so beautiful. _ "C'mon, Sarah. Nineteen feet of Lincoln, ours to behold!" She let herself be pulled after him, laughing in the soft-swirling snow.

ooOoo

They were standing in awe of the Lincoln statue, silent, when they heard footfalls behind them. Sarah turned her head. Her jaw dropped.

Langston Graham was standing there, looking at her, and looking at Chuck. Sarah was holding Chuck's hand, and eventually, that is where Graham's eyes settled.

"Good afternoon, Sarah Walker."

Chuck let go of Sarah's hand and turned around. She turned too. Chuck looked at Graham then gave Sarah a questioning glance.

"Chuck, this is Langston Graham, CIA Director Langston Graham."

Graham was obviously surprised that she so quickly revealed who he was.

Sarah was not sure what reaction she expected from Chuck — she was unsure of her own reaction beyond shock at seeing Graham anywhere but his office in Langley — but Chuck simply nodded and met Graham's intense gaze. "Hello, Mr. Graham, I'm Chuck, Chuck Bartowski. Sarah's boyfriend."

Graham tried not to react, but he could not keep himself from blinking.

Sarah felt her heart bounce again. She and Chuck had used the word 'girlfriend' but had not carried it through to 'boyfriend'. It had been implied but never stated.

Graham gave her a hard, disbelieving stare, and his comments were made through a sneer. "Agent Walker's _boyfriend. _Very surprising. Is...this…" — Graham made a flicking motion with his hand toward Chuck — "is this the reason you quit?"

Graham had been Sarah's boss forever. He commanded; she responded. His call earlier in the day had caused her to leave Chuck and return to Langley. For five years, her life had belonged to Graham and not to her.

His image of her as "his good right hand" told the story: she had been little more than an appendage, a limb, ruled by his will, his conscience (such as it was) almost totally eclipsing her own. His voice, internalized, crying down her own still, small one.

But that voice, her voice, had spoken up, made itself heard in his office when she quit. It had been making itself heard with Chuck, despite the return to Langley. And she had not really returned. She had turned around and come back, back to Chuck and Christmas in her apartment, to burgers made with love, and snowy kisses.

To the Great Emancipator, emancipation.

Freedom. The freedom to be who she was, to discover what was in her nature, not to do the bidding of a dictator, be he father or boss.

Sarah took Chuck's hand. "No, sir, Chuck is not the reason I quit. But he is the reason I know I was _right_ to do it."

Graham's stiffened. "We need to revisit that decision, Agent Walker. Shall we step aside and talk for a moment?"

Sarah began to get angry, but her anger made her recover from her shock at seeing Graham. What was he _doing _at the Lincoln Memorial on Christmas day? How could he have known where she?...

"You _bastard..._Where is it? Where?"

Sarah ran her hands along her coat. She had left it in Graham's outer office when she talked to him. When she told him she would quit, and left, Graham's assistant had handed Sarah her coat. She patted it. Then she felt something. She opened the coat and found a loose spot in a seam. She put her fingers in and fished out a tracker.

She threw it on the ground and stomped on it, grinding it into tiny pieces. She glared at Graham as she did it. "You had no right…"

"I do not lose graciously, Agent Walker. I was...not happy you came all the way to Langley only to leave without seeing me. Quitting me is not that simple."

She took Chuck's hand again and he squeezed hers. "You? Yes, it is. I mean, no, it's not. If it were simple, I'd have done it a long time ago. But you kept me trapped in obligations, real or imagined, and in constant motion. But I finally caught up with myself. It took five years. But I meant what I said. I'm done. My decision is final. I am not Agent Walker. I'm Sarah. And I am out."

Graham's face became a thunderhead. He was about to speak when an elf — or a boy dressed as an elf — ran between Chuck and Sarah, and Graham. He was chuckling like a maniac, gleeful but loopy. He was carrying a red Salvation Army donation bucket. Graham stepped back out of shock. The elf scurried away. Chuck started laughing.

A moment later, huffing and puffing, a Salvation Army Santa came bumbling along, his speed decreased by his Santa suit, thick black belt, and his high, black boots — and by the Salvation Army Donation sign he was carrying. The white ball on his red hat was bouncing with each heavy stride.

He stopped.

"Have you seen my elf? He's made off with the donations."

Chuck pointed, still laughing. "He went _thataway_!"

Santa nodded. He turned to Graham and handed him the sign. "Here, hold this!" Then he bumbled away. Graham was left standing there, the sign in his arms:

_The Salvation Army  
Doing the Most Good_

Chuck turned to Sarah and asked softly, "Are we done here? I think Director Graham has changed jobs."

Sarah nodded. She reached into her purse and took out a fifty-dollar bill. She tucked it into Graham's coat pocket. "Give this to Santa when he comes back." She leaned closer to Graham. "And never spy on me again. You've trained me. I am better at this than you will ever be. And let me put it this way: _you_ do not want me _unretired._ Merry Christmas!"

She took Chuck's hand as they walked away. She had a feeling of finality, but it was a good feeling, not a bad one. The trailing threads of her old life had been snapped. She felt light on her feet, liberated. The snow was swirling again and the afternoon beginning to darken but she was glowing inside.

They had gotten back to the Porsche and freed it from the garage where they parked it when Chuck's phone rang. He took it out of his pocket.

"Hey, Ellie! Merry Christmas to you too! Right, sorry about that. Something came up. No, no, not convention stuff. God, no, certainly not _her_, although she's been around."

Chuck turned his face to Sarah as he went on. "I've met someone, Ellie."

Pulling his phone from his ear, Chuck made a pained face. Sarah could hear a sound like the high-pitched noise used when radio stations tested the Emergency Broadcast System. Chuck put his phone back to his ear cautiously. "Yesterday, I met her yesterday. Sarah, Sarah Walker…"

He listened. "Um...about that. I'm thinking I will delay my flight home…" Sarah glanced from the road to Chuck. He was looking at her, checking with her. She smiled and nodded. "What, Ellie?" Sarah glanced at Chuck again. He had the same uncomfortable appearance that he had in the restaurant. "Is it serious?"

Sarah put out her hand, motioning for him to give her the phone. He did.

"Ellie, this is Sarah. Hi! Yes, it's nice to meet you too, phone-meet, I guess. Your brother's a little unsure about how I will feel about your _serious_ question, so I thought I'd save him the discomfort. _Super serious. _Yes, believe me, I think it's great too; you have no idea how great. Me too. I hope we can meet face-to-face soon. Bye!" She handed the phone to Chuck.

"Ellie, me again." He held the phone away from his ear and Sarah heard the EBS test sound again. "I'm not sure. To be honest, I'm considering looking for work here, Ellie. I know, I know. — But it's time, sis. It's time I do what you keep telling me to do. Become the man I was meant to be. I'm ready to do that now. Yeah, yeah. I will keep you in the loop, of course. A picture of me and Sarah? I'll see what I can do. Yeah, yeah. Love you too. Merry Christmas!"

He put the phone back in his pocket. Sarah kept her eyes on the road. "So, thinking about job-hunting here?"

Chuck ducked his head sheepishly. "Yeah, see, I met this girl, and she's...well, she's sort of a mix of Guinevere and Peggy Carter and...something...special, unique and undefinable...And when she looks at me, I almost burst with joy. And...I don't want to leave her."

Sarah reached out and took his hand. "Then don't. Let's get your things from the hotel and move you to my place." The late afternoon continued to darken, early DC December nightfall, but the dark was alive with snowflakes. "I don't know about you, but I'm ready for bed."

"It has been a big day. Tired?"

Sarah smiled. "I didn't say that. I said I was ready for bed."

ooOoo

Chuck's things were in his suitcase and backpack. Sarah was standing beside him on the elevator, eager to get back in the car and back to her apartment. She took a deep breath, allowing her happiness to extend itself all the way to her fingertips and toes. She reached out and turned Chuck's face to hers. "Something else for the resumé: You make me happy, Chuck."

He beamed. Then he jerked. "Oh, I got so caught up in everything else, I forgot to show you what I found in the paper." He pulled Sarah's notebook from his back pocket. The elevator reached the lobby and they stepped out. "Look."

He handed her a small piece of newspaper, carefully cut out. It had been tucked in the notebook.

_UN Security Council Interpreter Needed, Polylingual_

The job ad went on to list a set of languages that the interpreter would have to speak and some that would be a bonus. Sarah could speak all of the required ones fluently and most of the bonus ones too. Sarah glanced up from the ad to Chuck's eager eyes.

"Chuck, that'd be great!"

"I thought so too. A great fit. A great job. For a great girl."

She threw her arms around him and kissed him. When the kiss ended, she looked at the ad again. She had a good feeling, a really good feeling about it.

"Chuck, where have you been?"

It was Jill. She was standing with her arms crossed, glaring at Sarah.

She stepped closer, spoke quietly to Chuck. "Chuck, what do you know about this woman? She barely exists. Did she tell what she does for the CIA? Because, if she was an administrative assistant or a paper-pusher of some kind, there's no way she would be shrouded in such secrecy. She must be an agent...A spy. I figured it out."

Jill pulled herself to her full height, still much shorter than Sarah. "She's a professional liar, Chuck, a professional prostitute with a gun and a little badge. But she's still just a liar and a prostitute. You're far better than this, Chuck, far better than her."

Sarah wanted to be angry; she was angry. But each word stabbed. Jill was good at this, for all her ridiculousness. Even if the details were not right, even if Sarah had never slept with a mark or asset, and she hadn't, she had done the things she had done, and she had spent most of five years accusing herself of being a liar and a prostitute. She hadn't had sex with the men she had 'seduced' but she had used herself and the promise of sex to manipulate them. They were bad men, but that did not make what she did good. It did not make their reptilian hands less reptilian, their reptilian lips less reptilian...It did not change where their hands and lips had been.

She had no right to a man like Chuck. He still did not know about her childhood, her father — more shame, more baggage...

"Jill," Chuck said, and his voice had an edge of steel that made Sarah turn to him. "Let me be absolutely clear. I am not interested in you. I have never been interested in you. There was never a time when there was a chance I would be interested in you. You and me? Never, ever going to happen. That was true _before_ I met Sarah.

"You didn't lose some contest to Sarah. You were never in the contest, Jill. I'm sorry, but I don't know how to be clearer. _No_, Jill...just _no. _Hear me, please. Goodbye."

Chuck took Sarah's hand and led her away from Jill. Neither looked back.

Chuck settled up at the desk, returning his key cards. When he finished, Chuck nodded through the lobby doors. "Hey, look, the bar is open. How about a quick drink…" he leaned toward her, his mouth near her ear, "...before bed?"

Sarah nodded. "Okay."

They went outside, crossed the street, and into the bar. The beautiful red and green Christmas tree still dominated the scene. They put Chuck's luggage down near their stools and sat where they had been the night before. A different bartender, a woman, approached and took their orders. Sarah climbed on her stool and gazed at the Christmas tree. She kept waiting for its lights to flash red as they had the night before, when she was about to leave the hotel. But they never did. _Strange. _

"Sarah," Chuck began, "I'm really sorry about that, about what Jill said."

Sarah looked down at the bar. "She didn't say anything I haven't sometimes said to myself."

"Well, stop, please. There's no test you have to pass to...be in my heart. You occupied it from the moment we first spoke, sitting right about here. I'm yours, Sarah Walker." Sarah blinked back tears and took Chuck's hand. She glanced around. The same man, glasses and a beard, who had been at the bar last night was there again, on the same stool. He had a book again, but this time large and heavy, like a ledger, and it was open. He was writing in it, rapt in his task. He did not look up.

Sarah's spy sense tingled again. And again, more strongly.

The man looked like the Salvation Army Santa. He looked like the man with the sign at the road repair site. But the glasses of the man at the bar were not the same as either of the others' glasses, and the others had been wearing hats low on their heads. Still…

The red lights and the green lights..._Stop and go_...

What had the man with the sign said? "_Lady, you can go, if you want?"_ That had been the motto of the last day. The lights had never made up her mind for her, compelled her, but they had stopped her, slowed her down, nudged her forward, encouraged her. Unlike her father, unlike Graham: the lights had guided her to what she wanted for herself, not what someone else wanted for her...

That song, Wham!, the radios...The song on the jukebox last night, _Christmas Kisses._

The diner...

But...Sarah did not, until today, celebrate Christmas. She did _not_ believe in Santa Claus.

The man stopped writing and shut his book, putting his fountain pen in his pocket. He stood up and put money on the table. For a brief moment, he looked into Sarah's eyes, glanced at Chuck, and then he winked at her, smiled. He laid his finger aside of his nose and nodded.

He left the bar. Sarah stared after him.

Chuck was looking at Sarah. "What is it?" She turned to him, a feeling of gratitude claiming her, body and soul.

_My gift. Undeserved, maybe, but mine. Given to me, somehow. A blessing. Best. Christmas. Ever. _

"Nothing, Chuck, nothing." She smiled happily, kissed him. "Drink up. It's bedtime."

* * *

A/N: One final chapter to go. Thoughts? Drop a little something in the bucket, especially if you've been reading but haven't commented. After all, it's Christmas...


	6. Ecce Mysterium

A/N: The finish of our Christmas confection, arriving earlier than expected.

* * *

**Red and Green**

Chapter Six: _Ecce Mysterium_

* * *

Sarah could not sleep.

She felt silky, warm, safe — but too alive, too alert for sleep. _Happy_. She felt happy.

It was strange, feeling simultaneously so safe and yet so alive.

Safe, she felt safe. How long had it been? — She had not thought about it, noticed it, but she had felt unsafe for years, unsafe working with her father and working for Graham. Under siege. That was how it felt, how she felt. For years and years. She had kept her head down, fortified her walls, dug tunnels, stowed supplies. She had been living on rations, emotional rations, allowing herself to feel only so much, and only at certain times. At all other times, she was hungry, empty. And so eventually she had become numb, uncomfortably numb. Living her life but barely experiencing it. Numb. Cold. Under siege.

Until Graham announced the Red Test and Sarah said _no. _ Until Chuck asked her to his room and she said _yes. _

_I did, eventually. It just took a minute. And some lights. It took letting my heart speak and not my head, letting the growing Sarah decide and not the withering Agent Walker. _

And now she was entangled with Chuck, deliciously, deliriously entangled, their feet in contact and their bodies.

They had made love again and again, and fallen asleep together. But Sarah had awakened. Life and happiness and peace filled her to bursting. She could not be still.

She got out of bed with care, not disturbing Chuck. Finding Chuck's shirt, she slipped into it, unbuttoned — reveling in the scent of him. She tiptoed around the bed, leaned down, and kissed Chuck's cheek, a featherweight kiss.

After she did, she remained bent over him, then bent her knees, her face level with his, and gazed at him in wonder. She said, in a soft whisper, "I know it's too early, too early to say it, but I'm going to explode if I don't. I love you, Chuck. I do, I'm sure of it. I have been sure of so little in my life, but I am sure of this..." She trembled at her own words.

"It's all a mystery to me. Two days ago, I would have said I couldn't love anyone, and that no one could love me. Two days ago, I expected to be on a plane for God knows where, on another errand for Graham. But now," Sarah stood, wrapped Chuck's shirt tight around her, "I'm starting a new life, a life with you, your girlfriend, no longer Graham's errand girl." She bent down and gave him another featherweight kiss.

She padded out of the bedroom and to her couch. She sat down, still holding Chuck's shirt tight around her with one hand, and put her elbow on the arm of the sofa. She rested her head in her palm and stared at the Christmas tree. Her Christmas tree. Chuck's Christmas tree, his and hers.

It was strange, after a lifetime of loneliness, how natural sharing herself with Chuck seemed, how eager she was for it, and how eager she was for him to share himself with her. They had met each other at exactly the right time — in the fullness of time for each of them.

Sarah got up, still too happy to be still, and walked to the window. She looked out into the night, snow still falling. The thought of the snowflakes falling made her think of the diner earlier, the conversation between the man and his wife about blessings. The blessing of Chuck had somehow come through her fortifications, her walls, passing through them effortlessly to find her, her heart.

She laughed to herself, picturing Chuck's eagerness at the Memorial. _Nineteen feet of Lincoln. _She shook her head. _What was the title of the Sandburg books? The War Years. _Sarah had lived through her war years too, drudgery, personal tragedy — _Mom!_ — and the weight and horror of the interminable cold wars fought among spies.

She heard a sound and turned her head from the window. Chuck was standing in the door of the bedroom, wearing only his boxers, a blanket around his shoulders like a cape. Sarah smiled and gestured him to her with her head. He came to her and wrapped her in the blanket with him. They stared out at the snowfall together.

After a few minutes, he nuzzled her ear through her hair. "I'm so happy, Sarah."

She put her hand on his cheek, turning to him. "So am I, Chuck. Never this happy before, never even imagined _this happy _before."

She turned and they stared out a while longer.

"Hey," Chuck started softly, "that Salvation Army Santa we saw today…"

Sarah smiled, still looking out the window. "What about him?"

"I swear he looks a lot like the Go-Mart manager who sold me the tree, the Christmas decorations."

Sarah laughed softly. "Probably just a coincidence." _Wow._

Chuck shrugged. "Yeah, guess so. Weird, though."

"The world is a lot weirder than we know, I think. But not just in bad ways…"

"No," Chuck shook his head, tightened his embrace of her, "not just in bad ways. Thank God the Buy More is cheap as hell…"

"Just my luck," Sarah said, facing him but still in the blanket, allowing her full happiness to power her smile.

He smiled back just as fully happy. "Just mine too. I am officially the luckiest person on the planet."

_I think that's me, Chuck, but I am not going to argue. We are lucky. _

"What happens now, Chuck?"

"Well, I want to stay, Sarah. I want to help you find a job and to find one for myself. But," he loosened his embrace, stepped back just a bit, "I don't want to crowd you. I know this is all brand-new for us both, and I'll understand if you want to slow it down. If the girlfriend/boyfriend thing is too much…"

Sarah looked into the bedroom, making sure Chuck understood where she was looking. "Did I do anything in that bed — our bed — to make you think it was too much or that I wanted to slow it down?"

Chuck's gaze drifted for a moment. He smiled and shook his head.

"Right. Not a thing. Just the opposite, if you remember..._all of it._"

Chuck nodded.

Sarah had shifted her gaze back to him. "Do you like this place, Chuck, this apartment?"

He turned his head, looking around. "Yeah, I do. Why?"

"The Company rented it for me. I think I mentioned to you that my quitting means they will stop. But I'm pretty sure I have the right to stay, if I want, to lease it in my name. I never even imagined I would want to do that, but now," Sarah looked around, "now, I can. We could stay here. You said you have some money; I do too. And I have the best feeling about that UN job."

Chuck nodded with excitement. "Me too. It's sorta perfect for you. Important work, allowing you to put your linguistic brilliance to use...Maybe I shouldn't say it, but as soon as I saw it, I just knew…"

"So, you would...be willing to stay here in DC, and right here, in this apartment, with me?"

Chuck's face became serious. "'Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge.' Yes, Sarah, I am more than willing, it's all I can think about, us, what's happened, our future…"

Sarah smiled so big it hurt her cheeks. "Me too, Chuck. So, we are going to do this?"

"We are. I guess we're a little crazy..."

"The best kind of crazy...And you can leave Burbank, Morgan...Ellie?"

Chuck nodded. "I can. I mean, as soon as we've got time, I want us to go out there and visit, Ellie's going to love you, and Morgan will be stunned into insensibility...I guess I need to figure out how to get my essential stuff here, but I'm pretty sure Ellie will box it up and ship it."

Chuck paused, pursed his lips, and looked embarrassed. "How do you feel about _action figures_?"

Sarah chuckled. "Oh, you mean dolls-for-boys?" She nudged him with her shoulder.

Chuck's face scrunched. "Hey! — Oh...um...now that I think about it, yeah, dolls-for-boys."

"How do you feel about a woman who lives out of her suitcase, even at home?"

"I can live with that. And, maybe, once this feels like home, you will be able to unpack, or let me help you unpack?"

Sarah nodded, smiling at the thought. "Just be patient with me. I've lived in transit, in translation, for so long. — Say, Chuck, that line about lodging, that was beautiful. What's it from?"

"The Hebrew Bible. I took a _Bible as Literature _class at Stanford and we had a lecture on that passage one day. It stuck with me, I guess."

Sarah took Chuck's hand and led him to the sofa. They sat. Sarah faced him, brushing her hair back and sighing. "My mom died when I was little, Chuck." He nodded and she knew he understood her loss. "My dad was...my dad _is_...dishonest. A con man, although he prefers _con artist. _I grew up with him, constantly on the move, constantly living on the grift, grifters. I learned how to lie instead of how to ride a bike, how to pretend to be someone I was not, instead of learning who I was. I was good at it. The things that spilled out of my suitcase are today's baggage, but there's a lot of yesterday's too, Chuck."

Chuck's eyes were warm, sympathetic. "Where's he now, your dad?"

"I don't know. Just before I...joined the Company...I left him. I couldn't do it any longer. I ran away but not from home — I didn't have one. I just ran away from him and what he had made of me. I was homeless, on the streets, for a little while. I got arrested for shoplifting. At a grocery store; I was hungry. Graham got me out of the charges and sent me to the Farm."

Sarah had looked down as she spoke. She looked up to find Chuck's eyes full of tears. "I'm so sorry...baby."

Sarah's eyes had filled too. She sniffled and smiled, though. "'_Baby_?'"

Chuck bit his lower lip and nodded. "Yeah, um...too much?"

"No, sweetie, not too much."

"'_Sweetie_?' I can't believe I've fallen for a woman who is ex-CIA but wants to call me 'Sweetie'." Chuck grinned at her.

"I can't believe I've fallen for a man whose sister will ship him action figures from the West Coast, but who wants to call _me_ 'Baby'."

"Touché," Chuck said in concession, ducking his head, "I bow to your verbal prowess."

Sarah giggled herself into seriousness, and gave Chuck a long, searching look. "And it's not too much, my history, my story?"

"No. Not remotely. It makes me lo— care about you more, not less. Twice in your life, Sarah, twice — you've been trapped, cornered, forced into a life you really did not want, and twice you've been strong enough to say _no _and mean it, walk away, despite being good at what you were doing, despite the power of the men who trapped you. What you did with your dad, with Graham, the CIA, you're my hero. Heroine? Hero?..."

"Chuck," Sarah mock-warned, "If you call me 'a woman out of legend' again, I will hurt you."

Chuck closed one eye and tilted his head. "Um...Hmmm...Can you describe the procedure, in, you know, _exact_ physical terms?"

Sarah took his hand. "I can show you, but I think we'll need a bed…"

Chuck jumped to his feet. "God, I was hoping you would say that…"

ooOoo

Sarah woke up the day after Christmas to find herself alone. But there was a note on the pillow next to her. She rolled over on her side to reach it.

_Baby,_

_I went to the Go-Mart for coffee and breakfast. We need to go to the store. Back soon._

_All yours,_

_Sweetie (that is with an 'i-e', right, not a 'y'?)_

Sarah rolled onto her back, laughing. She heard the apartment door open.

"I'm home!" Chuck yelled in a merry voice.

Home. Some strange Christmas alchemy had made the place she lived five years without it becoming home into a home.

ooOoo

By the time Sarah had gotten up and taken a quick shower, Chuck had set out breakfast. Two cups of coffee and several fresh chocolate donuts.

Sarah went directly to Chuck and he enveloped her in his long arms.

"I didn't hurt you too bad last night, did I?"

Chuck blushed. "No, but I admit, as much noise as I made…"

Sarah kissed him. "Don't worry, I think the neighbors on both sides are away for the holidays. The folks below and above us…" she shrugged eloquently. Chuck looked at the ceiling then down to the floor. He grew redder. "Oh."

Sarah laughed and sat down. Chuck sat down next to her. He served her a donut. Sarah took it, broke it in half, put one half on her plate and dunked the other into her coffee. Chuck watched. She held it in the coffee.

"Don't tell me the well-traveled lass from…?"

"Las Vegas…"

"Really?"

Sarah nodded.

"Don't tell me the well-traveled lass from Las Vegas does not know how to dunk…"

Sarah took her donut from the coffee and managed to get the soaked portion into her mouth before it fell to the table. "Doo sho know how to dhunk," she said around her mouthful of donut.

Chuck shook his head, pulling a long face. "You don't know how to dunk…"

"Wait," Sarah said after swallowing, pulling her other half donut out of the reach of Chuck's hand. "I remember this scene. An old movie, right? Claudet Colbert and...Clark Gable. _It Happened One Night. _Right?!"

Chuck's Gable-grin was so slow and so sexy and it made Sarah feel giddy and breathless, ready again for bed. But she had just gotten up.

"Right. Gable's character, Peter, spends most of the movie instructing Colbert's character, Ellie — hey, _Ellie _again — on everything, including how to dunk donuts."

"Yeah, and on how to hitchhike," Sarah added. "But his fancy thumb-work gets no one to stop, so she bares a leg and immediately gets them a ride…"

Chuck held out his thumb. "Proving, as Ellie says, 'the limb is mightier than the thumb'," Chuck laughed.

"Hmmm…" Sarah mused, pushing her chair back and lifting the shirttails of Chuck's shirt, all she was wearing, and extending her legs. "I wonder if that's true…"

Chuck gulped. "Believe me, it's true. So true."

Sarah chuckled and dropped the shirttails, scooted back to the table. "So, how was the Go-Mart this morning. Was the Santa-y manager there?"

"No, speaking of weird, the manager who was there said that the guy yesterday was a loaner.

"A loner?"

Chuck looked confused for a second. "No, a _loaner. On-loan_. Today's manager's daughter was sick yesterday (she's okay now, he said) and he had to call in. They sent yesterday's manager down from some Go-Mart north of here…"

Sarah felt a tingle again, her spy sense. "Of course, they did."

"Oh, guess what else?"

"What?"

"Today's manager's _brother _runs a home security design firm, and they're looking for a programmer, someone to oversee the lab, the R & D side of the business. The manager talked to me then called his brother. I have an interview tomorrow."

"Chuck, that's so great!"

He gave her a happy grin. "I know. We are lucky."

Sarah looked deep into his eyes. "We are lucky. Blessed, even."

Chuck grabbed a donut. "Let me show you, Miss lass from Las Vegas, how you dunk."

Sarah watched in mock-fascination as Chuck dunked a half-donut.

Out of the blue, the procedure struck Sarah as an emblem of baptism. Putting off the old and putting on the new. Rebirth.

Chuck pulled the donut from the coffee and popped it in his mouth. Sarah sipped her coffee in thoughtful amusement.

"So what are we going to do today? Because if Ellie expects Peter to show her how to piggyback across a stream, it's a little too cold for that."

Sarah kicked Chuck gently beneath the table. "Well, I thought we could call _your_ Ellie in an hour or two and talk to her, tell her our plans — and see about her FedExing the action figures, because I admit, the place now seems bare without your dolls." Chuck started to protest but Sarah went on. "Then I thought we'd finish my resumé and submit it online to the UN. After that, we could go to the rental office and sign the lease papers. The office staff is supposed to be in today. I saw the sign last week. Then I thought we'd go and look at some new furniture, some non-Christmas decorations for the apartment."

Chuck gave her an eager smile. "Couple stuff?"

"Couple stuff."

"So we are doing this?" Chuck asked, checking.

"We are so doing this." Sarah got up and sat on Chuck's lap, her eyes near his. "I'm in Jill's debt for chasing you from your hotel and into _The Night of Joy._"

"I guess it was good she wouldn't take _no _for an answer."

Sarah nodded. "If she had, I wouldn't have ever gotten to say _yes._" She pulled Chuck close and kissed him, tasting Chuck and donut and coffee, the good things in life.

_Yes. _

* * *

Outside the apartment building, a heavy-set man in a dark grey suit stood looking up at Sarah's window.

He was standing beside a dark red Cadillac. He had on dark sunglasses, cutting the glare of the morning sun on the new-fallen snow. He had his hand to his ear, listening, then he nodded and began to whistle tunelessly, merrily.

A very small man, so small he seemed at first glance no more than a boy, came walking to the car, carrying a cardboard to-go tray from the nearby Go-Mart, two coffees in it. He was in a dark blue suit and sunglasses.

"Well, are we done, sir? _Operation Red and Green_?"

The heavy-set man laughed softly. "Sub-mission complete, Mr. Upatree. We did good."

"Good. We always do. But It's getting harder and harder fitting these Christmas sub-missions in. If you don't mind me saying it, sir, neither of us is getting any younger."

"No, Shinny, you're right. But this one — it was so worth it. I'm about twelve years later than I wanted to be, I'm ashamed to say. — She's forgotten, but I haven't."

The heavy-set man reached into his jacket pocket and took out a browned sheet of paper. On it was a note, written in a girl's hand. He read the note to the small man.

_Dear Santa,_

_I don't believe in you, but please bring me someone who loves me for Christmas._

_Samantha_

"Why'd it take you...us...so long, if you don't mind me asking, sir?"

"Sometimes it takes a long time to find the perfect gift."

They got in the Cadillac and headed north.

* * *

A/N: Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. Thanks!

Please let me know your final thoughts.

By the way, I wrote a Casey-o-centric Christmas story concurrent with this one, _A Year Without Christmas?_ if you haven't read it. Hope you enjoy all the Christmas stories being posted.


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